(The Center Square) – North Carolina residents will no longer need permission from county sheriffs to purchase a pistol after lawmakers overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on Wednesday to repeal the 110-year-old statute.
Members of the state House of Representatives voted 71-46 to reverse Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 41, following a 30-19 vote in the Senate on Tuesday to do the same. SB41 initially cleared the House with a veto-proof majority two weeks prior.
Cooper, who as a state senator helped North Carolina in 1997 become the 50th state with a gubernatorial veto, had issued his 76th – more than twice as many as the previous four governors combined. And still with just under two years left on his eight-year term limit. This was the 24th Cooper veto to fall to an override, the first since the 2018 midterms ended supermajorities in both chambers for Republicans.
In November’s midterms, the GOP got within one House vote of supermajorities in both chambers. Three House Democrats are co-chairmen of committees this session.
“Members have heard all the pros and all the cons,” Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said ahead of the vote. “The issues have been well debated.”
Cooper successfully vetoed the pistol permit repeal in 2021. The century old pistol permit process has been referred to as a Jim Crow law, a pejorative term for enforced segregation from the early 20th century.
In addition to repealing the pistol purchase permit effective July 1, SB41 allows concealed carry of firearms at religious services that share locations with private or charter schools, and launches a two-year firearm safe storage awareness initiative. The latter provisions are effective Dec. 1.
Cooper and other Democrats have leveraged Monday’s school shooting in Tennessee to chide lawmakers for their actions. Cooper, in a statement, said, the law “will allow more domestic abusers and other dangerous people to own handguns and reduces law enforcement’s ability to stop them from committing violent crimes.”
“Hours after children were shot to death in their school, NC GOP leaders announced a vote to eliminate strong NC background checks and make it easier for dangerous people to buy guns and take them on some school grounds. Outrageous,” Cooper posted to Twitter on Tuesday.
Sen. Danny Britt, the Robeson County Republican sponsor of SB41, has noted that the vast majority of pistol sales in North Carolina take place through federally licensed dealers. He and proponents of the law say the permit process was often backlogged, and duplicative of the required National Instant Criminal Background Check system run by the FBI.
The North Carolina Sheriff’s Association backed the bill.
Democrats have argued SB41 would create a “giant loophole” that would allow individuals to obtain handguns through private sellers who are not required to conduct background checks.
At least one lawmaker attempted to debate the veto override on Wednesday morning, but was blocked by Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, who cited House rules that prohibit debate on override votes.
That prompted House Democratic Leader Robert Reives of Chatham County to apologize to students who attended the session.
“We’re a deliberative body, and that was not shown to you today,” he said. “That breaks my heart.”
Republicans clarified that the bill was debated at length in the current and previous sessions. It also went through committees in each chamber.
Veto overrides in North Carolina require three-fifths majority in each chamber. That’s 30 votes in the Senate, and 72 in the House. Republicans turned back 23 of the first 28 vetoes from Cooper between 2016 and the 2018 midterms.
This article First appeared in the center square