A push for gun owners to be able to carry concealed handguns in North Carolina without first having to obtain a permit is gaining momentum, with GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate filing legislation to that effect in recent days.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans announced that they had introduced a bill that would allow for permitless carry of a concealed handgun, with the backing of the chamber’s GOP leader.
Senate Bill 50, titled “Freedom to Carry NC,” would allow anyone who is a U.S. citizen and at least 18 years of age, and who isn’t otherwise prohibited by law, to carry a concealed handgun in the state — without having to obtain a permit from their local sheriff’s office, as is currently required. It follows similar legislation filed by Rep. Keith Kidwell in the House last week.
In a statement, bill sponsors Sens. Danny Britt, Warren Daniel and Eddie Settle said that the General Assembly “has made incredible strides to defend the Second Amendment rights of North Carolinians,” but added that “there is still more we can do.”
“We need to join the majority of states and recognize that law-abiding citizens should be able to exercise their Second Amendment rights without getting permission from the government,” Britt, Daniel and Settle said.
The emergence of a permitless carry bill in the Senate, backed by Senate leader Phil Berger, is notable since similar legislation has previously stalled in the GOP-controlled legislature. Two of the bill’s primary sponsors, Britt and Daniel, both chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, which typically considers legislation pertaining to firearms.
A permitless carry bill filed in 2023 by Rep. Keith Kidwell, the head of the House Freedom Caucus, appeared to have the support to move through the House that year, and quickly passed two committees ahead of a key legislative deadline for bills to pass through one chamber before moving to the next, but was ultimately pulled.
The push in the spring of 2023 to allow people to carry concealed handguns without a permit followed GOP lawmakers successfully repealing the state’s 100-year-old permit requirement for purchasing handguns, over a veto by then-Gov. Roy Cooper.
Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters when the permitless carry bill stalled in May 2023 that Republicans had already passed “substantial” legislation with the repeal of the pistol purchase permit law, which he said had been the “No. 1 goal” of many gun rights groups.
At the time, Berger said he didn’t know “if there’s a need for us to delve into additional issues dealing with guns and people’s Second Amendment rights.”
Then-House Speaker Tim Moore also indicated the bill didn’t have enough support in the House, saying that there was some “difference of opinion” in his caucus.
Now, the bill being introduced in the Senate has Berger’s support as well. The top Senate Republican signed on as a sponsor, along with seven other members of his GOP caucus.
Paul Valone, the president of Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun rights group that has been urging GOP lawmakers to legalize permitless carry, also referred to as constitutional carry, for years, thanked Berger on Tuesday for taking up the bill.
“Grass Roots North Carolina supporters thank Senator Berger for reconsidering his reluctance to pass a constitutional carry bill in the last session,” Valone said in a text message to The News & Observer. “We look forward to working with Republicans in the General Assembly to get the bill to the governor’s desk.”
The permitless carry bill filed by Kidwell and fellow Republican Reps. Jay Adams, Ben Moss and Brian Echevarria last week, named the “NC Constitutional Carry Act,” has since gained 22 additional GOP sponsors.
While removing the permit requirement for concealed carry, both the Senate and House bills would keep the permitting system in place “for the purpose of reciprocity when traveling in another state, to make the purchase of a firearm more efficient, or for various other reasons.”
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