Brown-eyed people are more likely than blue-eyed people to pack a gun in North Carolina.
Much about the nearly 400,000 concealed pistol permit holders here — including their names, addresses, weights and, yes, even eye colors — is a matter of public record. But state lawmakers are trying to change that.
A bill crawling through the N.C. General Assembly aims to make that information confidential, open only to law enforcement. It is one of more than a dozen measures introduced this year as lawmakers bow to long-held demands among gun rights activists.
As mass shootings fuel debate about the proper role of firearms in American society, Colorado, Connecticut, New York and a slew of other states have passed or considered anew restrictions on guns and related hardware. But North Carolina seems headed in the opposite direction, a reflection of how the Republican Party’s recent electoral gains have shifted the state’s political calculus.
“Legislators understand that gun owners were a large reason that conservatives made huge gains in all areas of government in North Carolina,” said Paul Valone, president of the gun rights group Grass Roots North Carolina. “The gun vote came out big in 2012. And frankly, we want what we came for.”
Gun-friendly proposals floated recently include allowing permit holders to bring guns into restaurants, limiting how much information sheriffs may request during the concealed carry application process, and letting school employees arm themselves at work.
One bill calls for voters to decide via a referendum whether to add the right to carry a concealed gun to the state constitution. Another seeks to allow hunting with silencers.
Lawmakers and proponents portray their legislative efforts as curtailing bureaucratic red tape, alleviating constraints on responsible and law-abiding gun owners, and bolstering people’s defensive capabilities.
The idea of closing off public access to concealed carrier information arose after several news organizations reported the names, addresses and other details of individual permit holders. “No one has any business knowing or publishing that information,” said state Rep. Larry Pittman, Republican from Cabarrus County.
Some expressed interest in expanding the list of areas where permit holders are allowed to carry guns beyond the restaurant bill already proposed.
“My personal view is that except for very limited places like a courtroom, where you’re clearly already under the protection of bailiffs, I don’t really know why concealed carry permit holders aren’t allowed to go almost anywhere,” said state Sen. Buck Newton, a Wilson County Republican. He added later that there is “a lot of evidence to support this is sound policy from a crime control and safety standpoint.”
Lawmakers’ recently proposed policies are not without controversy, and scholars take issue with the argument that greater freedom to carry guns equals a safer society.
A recent study by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health found that states with the most gun control laws had 42 percent fewer gun-related deaths than those with the least amount. Though the findings did not show cause and effect, one author argued that legislation had a clear impact.
“It’s not just a single law that fixes things,” said Eric Fleegler, an attendant physician in pediatric emergency medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “When you have laws that regulate at various points — whether its about assault weapons, universal background checks, permits or how often you can purchase a gun — these have a cumulative effect on how often people are dying by firearms.”
Attorney General Roy Cooper lambasted a bill that would strip sheriffs’ ability to examine information about applicant’s mental health beyond what is already reported to the federal government. “Sheriffs checking mental health information before issuing concealed weapon permits is a common-sense safety measure that should remain the law,” he said in a statement.
The National Rifle Association and its ilk have scored major legislative victories over the last decade as lawmakers steadily chipped away at restrictions on handguns, concealed carry permits, assault-style weapons and other areas. But despite the legislative flurry unfolding in North Carolina, the momentum seems to have swung.
With the gun issue pushed center stage by last year’s elementary school massacre, and polls showing that a public majority now favors stricter gun laws, newly emboldened supporters of gun control have pressed their agendas in statehouses around the country, with some significant success.
Laura Cutilletta, a senior staff attorney at a San Francisco-based organization, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said last week that 1,152 gun-related bills had been introduced around the country thus far in 2013, with more than half designed to tighten gun control. 2011 saw 62 percent fewer bills. And what’s more, a majority of the measures proposed that year were geared in the opposite direction, toward loosening gun laws.
(Cutilletta compares 2011 to 2013 because for some state legislatures those years were the first of a two-year session, when most bills are introduced.)
While there is no guarantee which bills will pass — many in North Carolina await committee approval — the numbers reflect a shifting national mood.
“The sense of divisiveness is fueled by the advocacy groups on both sides, who demonize each other and portray the whole issue as in apocalyptic, sky-is-falling terms,” said Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the Universityof Californiain Davis. “The vast majority of the country don’t define themselves by gun ownership and simply want to live in a society where people are safe and free.”