A permitless carry bill is on its way to North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein after the state House passed SB 50 on a 59-48 vote Wednesday afternoon. Stein, who was previously the state’s Attorney General and a reliable ally of the gun control lobby, hasn’t officially said what he’ll do with the legislation, but frankly, there are better odds of Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom releasing an album of duets than Stein signing the bill into law.
Advertisement
So, if North Carolina is going to become the 30th state in the country to remove the need for a government-issued permission slip to exercise a fundamental civil right, the House and Senate are going to have to override Stein’s veto. That shouldn’t be too difficult in the Senate, where Republicans have a veto-proof majority, but there’s some work to be done in the House before SB 50 can become law.
Republicans are one-vote shy of a supermajority in the House, but two GOP House members also voted against SB 50 on the floor. Ten other Republicans and three Democrats abstained. If every member of the House is present for a veto override attempt, Second Amendment advocates are going to have to persuade at least three lawmakers to change their mind, which will be tough. Once Stein officially vetoes the bill, however, lawmakers can bring the bill up for an override attempt at any time before the session ends on July 31st, which may give supporters an opportunity to hold a vote if enough opponents are absent or abstain from voting.
In a statement after SB 50 passed the House, Grassroots North Carolina head Paul Valone says the group “has every confidence we can muster the votes needed to over-ride Governor Josh Stein’s inevitable veto,” while also warning that “any Republican who opposes the wishes of the voters who elected him will pay a price in 2026.”
Advertisement
The floor debate of SB 50 lasted about an hour, with Democrats launching a series of emotional appeals against the measure.
Rep. Tracy Clark (D-Guilford) shared two emotional stories about her own experience and trauma from guns.
A childhood friend died by suicide while the pair attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill together. Four years later, Clark lost another friend, Eve Carson, to homicide.
Carson, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student body president, was shot and killed near the campus in March 2008.
“Two totally different stories that I’m traumatized by: suicide with a good guy with a gun, homicide with two very bad guys with a gun,” Clark said. “I have to speak out today because this bill goes too far.”
House Democratic leader Robert Reives said he was moved by Clark’s painful remembrance of her friends lost to gun violence.
“I felt I would be less of a man not to stand up and tell her how much I feel those stories,” said Reives.
I feel for Clark as well. Neither of those tragedies, however, have anything to do with removing the requirement that someone obtain a permit before they can lawfully carry. In fact, the murder of her friend is proof that violent criminals are already carrying without a license. SB 50 doesn’t allow prohibited persons to possess a firearm. It simply states that lawful gun owners can both keep and bear arms without the need for a permit.
Advertisement
Rep. Jay Adams (R-Catawba) reminded the chamber that he, like many of his friends, are part of the baby boomer generation born to World War II veterans whose parents taught them how to own weapons responsibly. Adams said he has owned firearms since he was 11 years old.
But circumstances are different now, Rep. Amos Quick (D-Guilford) retorted. He said everybody is a law-abiding citizen until they’re not.
“When I was in school, no one thought about a school shooting,” he said. “If we pass this bill, we are opening the door potentially for more of our children to have to endure the horrors of being locked in their classroom, because one of their classmates, 18 years old, had the state of North Carolina’s stamp of approval to go and get a weapon and conceal it and walk in the school.”
Has any potential mass shooter been thwarted because they’re not allowed to legally carry a gun? Does Quick realize they’re not allowed to commit mass murder either? Quick’s argument is nonsensical, but if he honestly believes that mass murderers will obey laws governing the lawful carrying of firearms he should be relieved to know that bringing a gun into a school would still be illegal under SB 50.
Opponents of SB 50 act like North Carolina would be the first state in the nation to experiment with permitless carry when more than half the country already have similar laws in place. Not a single one of them have repealed its permitless carry law once enacted, and for good reason. Permitless carry simply doesn’t create the problems that anti-gunners claim it will. Louisiana’s permitless carry law took effect last July, for example, and right now the homicide rate in New Orleans is down 35% compared to last year; and that’s taking into account the January 1 terror attack in the French Quarter in which 14 people were killed. If you exclude the victims of that attack, homicides are down 61% compared to the same time period in 2024.
Advertisement
We’ll be talking with Paul Valone about the effort to override Stein’s veto on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co next week, but gun owners in the state should be talking to their lawmakers now and urging them to get behind an override attempt or at least absent themselves from the chamber instead of voting against SB 50 when it comes up in the weeks ahead.
