The gallery for the Lenoir County commissioners meeting was packed and color-coordinated.
Monday afternoon, an overflow crowd clad in red watched as the Board of Commissioners led off the meeting by approving two gun rights resolutions offered by commissioners Eric Rouse and Linda Rouse Sutton. To the surprise of Rouse, who initially put forth the idea at the Jan. 22 meeting, both measures passed unanimously.
“I guess they knew it was coming, one way or another,” Rouse said. “But I was very happy with the outcome. It couldn’t have gone any smoother. I wanted to keep everything civil — didn’t want anybody to stand up and berate the commissioners or anything like that. We were trying to avoid any type of scene. If we passed it, we passed it. If we didn’t, we didn’t, and that’s all we could have done. But I’m very happy it passed.”
The first resolution had the Board of Commissioners “resolve as representatives of the people to defend the Second Amendment and Article I, Section 30 of the N.C. Constitution.”
The second regarded the privacy of lawful gun owners. It resolves the board to “call upon the governor and the General Assembly of North Carolina to enact legislation protecting gun owners from undue and unwanted release of personal information by exempting said information from public records laws.”
Some newspapers have created controversies by publishing lists of people who own gun permits or have concealed-carry licenses.
“Other papers around the nation have exposed gun and permit owners, and it subjects these people to be targets of criminals,” Rouse said. “That was one of those things — that’s nobody’s business, it serves no purpose to do things like that and to expose people and what their assets are, if they have something of value. And, (making those records private) just protects people.”
Board of Commissioners Vice-Chairwoman Jackie Brown wasn’t supportive of the idea initially, noted in the Jan. 22 meeting minutes as “not fond of guns and does not believe in guns.”
However, she said Tuesday she revisited the issue and came to a different conclusion before the meeting Monday.
“I had done a little reading, a little research on it,” Brown said. “And that changed my mind, and my thinking.”
Sutton was also not on board early on, recorded as saying it’s a national issue and the Board of Commissioners can’t do anything about it. However, after being approached by Rouse, they collaborated on the passed resolutions.
All in all, Board of Commissioners Chairman Reuben Davis was pleased with how it turned out.
“Well, I thought it went the way it should have gone,” Davis said. “We had a contingent of people in the commissioners’ room and in the courthouse who really wanted these resolutions passed, and I was real proud it went smooth like it did. I have no regrets whatsoever — I thought it was handled the way it should have been handled.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.
N.C. Constitution: Article I, Section 30
‘A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; and, as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be maintained, and the military shall be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. Nothing herein shall justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons, or prevent the General Assembly from enacting penal statutes against that practice.’