Yesterday, the state senate voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill end pistol permits. This morning, the state house will likely do the same. The bill will become law and we’ll have one less tool to keep guns out of the hands of disturbed and dangerous people. As guns have become the number one killer of children, the GOP is making sure that we are at greater risk.
Throughout the debate, Republicans have been claiming that the pistol permit law is a relic of Jim Crow. They claim the law was meant to keep guns out of the hands of Black citizens so they couldn’t protect themselves from vigilantes. The whole argument is bullshit, based on a false reading of history.
The debate highlights so much that is wrong with the modern GOP. They have no sense of history. Former Republican house Majority Leader Skip Stam laid out the history of gun control in the country and it began before we were even a nation. The pistol permit law was put in place to help curb gun violence, not keep African Americans unarmed. But modern Republicans aren’t going to let facts get in their way.
The goal of Republicans is to control the narrative of history by obscuring facts that contradict their ideology. In GOP world, pistol permits were racist. If they say it long enough, it becomes true. They know that because we spent more than a hundred years calling traitors heroes. We’ve never reckoned with the real costs and impacts of slavery because the reactionaries that today control the Republican Party don’t want us to.
The GOP also lives under delusions that guns make us safer. I don’t think they really believe it, but they keep repeating it. Today, guns are the leading cause of death among children in this country. The North Carolina Legislature just made it easier for people with mental illness and histories of violence to purchase pistols. We are less safe, not more safe, but that truth is irrelevant.
The GOP is a party that lies to its base. Of course, the base sucks up those lies. They’ve got a whole media environment that protects them from the truth and allows them to live in an America that doesn’t really exist.
In their world, guns make us safer. Voter fraud is huge a problem. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to the working class. Christianity is under assault. White people are victims of discrimination. Immigrants are taking our jobs. Drag queens are threatening our children. Vaccines are more of a threat than diseases. The pandemic was a hoax. The election was stolen.
The common threads are victimization and race. The GOP is an almost all White party that lacks the ability to see that different backgrounds and experiences result in different perspectives. People are coming for their guns which threatens their safety. Illegal immigrants are voting which threatens their power. Vaccine mandates threaten their liberty. And on and on.
The America in which these reactionaries live exists only in the world of Fox News, talk radio, and the fever dreams of social media creations like Charlie Kirk. They live in fear. Everyone is out to get them and nobody is out to protect them. They will tolerate Sandy Hook shootings and teen suicides to protect unfettered access to guns and they’ll tell themselves that they are ending relics of Jim Crow. It’s not just that they are believing the lies. It’s that they are lying to themselves.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
So we’re back to politics being a game? Some days you win and some days you lose. Winning elections matter. Did I hit the relevant dogmatic cliches?
I’ve heard that a lot from others across the years; “Politics is just a game.” You know what Andrew, it ceases to be a game when the game pieces are peoples’ lives. The pawns you are willing to sacrifice in order to save the King are flesh and blood. The tone of your entire response is asinine. Actions indeed have outcomes. Despite my complete ambivalence to the drop of the permit requirement, I believe history will show you to be on the wrong side of this issue.
I sat in a local Sheriff’s Office lobby yesterday waiting to transact some business and had occasion to witness and hear the following. A man and his son came in to the lobby. The man had tried to purchase a handgun and was denied on the basis of his being a convicted felon. He had discovered that he was barred from purchasing a handgun (or any weapon really) on that basis. He hired a lawyer to have his record expunged. He succeeded locally, but the computerized record with the FBI still prevented him from completing that purchase. Some will read that think that the computerized record system works as a standalone. But the actual denial started at the local level. What should scare you though? The fact that you can remove a felony conviction from your record. People do make mistakes. Felonies though are hardly a simple societal misstep.
Something else that the permitting process did provide was a signed release and notarized to search the records of the Clerks of Court to see if the person had ever been committed on the basis of some mental infirmness. I’m not sure the national background check does that on the simple fact that a national database doesn’t exist for the reporting of that information. If it does, I’m sure someone will correct that assumption lickety-split.
Gun ownership is a moral responsibility. Simply on the basis of ownership, it should only be afforded those with a moral, ethical, and mental acuity and maturity that prevents weapons of any kind, shape, or type from being used for nefarious ends.
It was also a source of revenue for the local Sheriff. How is the legislature going to allow for them to re-coup those funds through additional fees or an increase in the Concealed Carry Permit?
After all, it is ultimately all about the money; not the pawns, not the carnage, not the lives torn apart, just the bottom line.
Nobody wants prohibited people to have firearms. In 2013, HB937 funded digitizing all the old paper and microfiche mental health disqualification records, and submitting them to FBI NICS. NC law requires law enforcement and our courts to update NICS in a timely way. The Sheriffs have no “secret knowledge” that they can use which is not also required to be reported to FBI NICS if it’s factual and prohibiting. This repeal closes a dangerous loophole opened by paper permits good for 5 years after issue and the only background check performed. The only audit in 2014 found 5,255 of the permits still in the hands of prohibited people after they became felons, domestic abusers or otherwise prohibited. The end of this Jim Crow era 1919 system, originally passed by Democrats and still supported by them, verified through contemporary news accounts of the application of the system, relieves us of this infringement, now in the dustbin of history.
Still does not remove federal background check, you cant just walk in buy a gun and walk out. Blind leading blind blamin others for what they dont see
A centralized Federal system is great provided it is kept current by the daily input of local data. This may not happen due to several reasons. (1) Local officials may lag in feeding the Feds information. Not something that surprise folks as gun sales surged during the covid 19 pandemic. (2) NC does not have a state-of-the-art automated name index system that allows statewide searches. Some other states have issues in this area. (3) The criteria used by local agencies may not address all the areas required. There are numerous factors that come into play to prevent the wrong folks from getting a weapon. Remember, every time some halfwit acquires a weapon and dose harm, that increases legislation designed to restrict firearm sales.
Exactly, it’s all about the money. So sickening, these legislators never think of the children.
Let us hope removing the local sheriff from the background check system will not allow questionable individuals from slipping through the system.
As if the sheriff knows anyone personally enough to make any determination towards them.
Its a bad system put in for bad reasons. For you “questionable individuals” are black people because this is EXACTLY why this law was in place. To keep those “uppity blacks” in their place.
The tantrum from the Democrats just allows everyone to see clearly the racist roots of the Democrat party and to see that racism still resides in the Democrat party, as a core tenet.
Shame on you! Why do you want to make it harder for black and brown people to exercise their rights? After all a right delayed is a right denied!
The racism of the Democrat party goes further than statues and Army base names. It’s in the law, and this one should have been gone long ago.
Perhaps when you old boomers finally die off, not only will we be rid of you, but your racism as well.
So easy to find falsehoods and outright lies in this poorly written article.
It is easily seen as political hacks sad attempt at inciting the left.
He should seek mental health treatment as soon as possible.
As one who has personally invested 10 years in repealing our racist, Jim Crow Pistol Purchase Permit, I’m happy to say my hard work has finally paid off. Thomas, you need to find out how it happened that the House Democrats “allowed” this to happen. There is all the makings of an internal double-cross within the House Democrat caucus and a Caucus Leader who apparently has no control over what his people promise, how they vote, or even if they show up to work. Who is guilty and who will pay? Already there are calls for Democrat district primaries. Sure is fun watching!
“Medicaid expansion” ??? Clove did you read what Mill’s wrote before making that earth shaking observation?
How revealing to say “you” got Medicaid expansion, as if Thomas is the sole beneficiary.
This does not provide “unfettered access to guns.” That is the lie. To buy a gun from a dealer, one will still need to pass the national background check. This bill does not eliminate that requirement. They just won’t need to get permission from their local sheriff. BTW the current law requiring the additional permit from the local sheriff is not required to buy a rifle.
It’s not that republicans are lying to themselves, it’s because they don’t give a $**=. They’re far more concerned with campaign donations, and not offending their snowflake voting base than actually doing anything about problems in our country. Governance is hard – staying in power and enriching yourself is easy.
PS> Adam, nice comment. You’re always right on top of it.
Well said. I’m disgusted with the current Republican Party. Their ideology is not main stream. The do not represent the majority.
I’d say its not the Democrat party mainstream. Which is now revealed to be thoroughly racist. If there is anyone to be disgusted towards it all the Democrats who want to hinder an American in exercising their Constitutional rights.
Why align yourself with the KKK?
You got Medicaid expansion this week and you’re tantruming about the first veto override in 5 years. Chill out.