I am deeply devoted to North Carolina, and it is the only state I have ever known. Growing up in the very rural Sampson County, I fondly remember tractors going by in fields and sunrises over my grandfather’s barn. I have always conceived of North Carolina as a place of peace, but the recent, startling increase in gun violence is reshaping my relationship to my home state. With over 117 mass shootings in NC since 2020, many North Carolinians are fearful for the future. Senate Bill 50, which would permit concealed-carry in North Carolina, would worsen this already bleak situation (the bill was vetoed by Gov. Josh Stein in June, but the Senate overrode his veto and the bill is likely to pass). I have worked in the gun violence prevention sphere in many capacities, including serving as a national representative for Sandy Hook Promise for over 4 years, an Advocacy Campaign Manager for Everytown for Gun Safety, and a historical researcher on the second amendment through Duke Center for Firearm Law. These experiences allow me to understand the dangers of such a bill.
Throughout the 21st century, there has been a resurgence of strict Second Amendment originalism in the Supreme Court, which has led to many states changing their gun policies. Senate Bill 50 would permit North Carolinians to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, and would lower the age for concealed carry from 21 to 18. These provisions are not unique to the North Carolina bill, as there are 29 other states with laws at least comparable in nature. The fact that so many states have passed such bills, however, should not be considered evidence in favor of passage. States that have removed their permit requirements from 1999 to 2021 have seen, on average, a 27 percent increase in gun homicides within three years of the change.
This is no coincidence. In 2023, North Carolina lawmakers sustained Senate Bill 41, which allowed for the purchase of a handgun with no permit. Twelve months following the passage of the bill, there were 27 mass shootings in North Carolina, reaching a three-year climax.
The Second Amendment, as interpreted in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), confirms the individual right to possess a firearm, primarily for self-defense. With little federal legislation or public policy enacted directly affecting the Second Amendment until recent years, there was room for alternative interpretive approaches to means-end scrutiny (in which the constitutionality of a law is assessed in terms of whether it is narrowly tailored to achieving its intended effects). Legal protections protections like those seen in McDonald v. Chicago continued through other cases, including District of Columbia v. Heller reaffirmed the right to carry arms in a safe manner, reinforcing the protections of the Second Amendment. But these protections are broad and sweeping and invite misinterpretation, Following the decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen—which introduced a primarily historical approach to Second Amendment jurisprudence, mandating that new gun laws be consistent with historical tradition of firearm regulation—one must consider how this notion of originalism will affect our current gun violence prevention problem.
The Founders simply would not have had the capacity to understand what the gun violence epidemic looks like today. As British historian Dominic Erdozain has said, “Mass shootings would not have surprised the Founders. A government that tolerates them would.” This is why, even through the lens of constitutional originalism, SB-50 is still unnecessary and extreme. Gun carrying has never been monolithic, and one could turn down many different paths to understand gun use. From dueling to farm use, guns have taken on various roles, including the many instances in which carrying a concealed weapon is seen as dishonorable. One example of this is the Aaron Burr Trials, where they shame him for his use of weapons. This highlights that, even in the earlier years of American development, many men felt that the concept of a concealed weapon was wrong and a stain on moral character. Many cities banned the use of guns within the city limits, and other cities took a less extreme approach by prohibiting the use of concealed guns in the town, and allowing for some larger weaponry as a means of preserving honor in properly carrying the firearm. This bill would serve as the opposite of what is seen here historically, as we know that historical tradition can mean many things, and cherry-picking only some historical commentary on guns will never be enough to understand the “founders era opinion.”So allowing easier access to weaponry on the grounds of historical tradition is simply not sufficient enough to combat modern day facts (one of these facts being that individuals between the ages of 18 and 20 are three times more likely to cause mass shootings), and adding this new branch to the tree of gun legislation in North Carolina would explicitly provide the most violent-prone segment of the population with easier access to concealed weaponry.
That being said, I am not here to shame the carrying of weaponry or to say that I feel that people with proper permits should not be able to carry a concealed weapon. I am instead saying that a bill like SB-50 would cause unnecessary damage and endorses continued atrocities by allowing many to conceal a gun with no proper training to do so, stripping many of the freedom to feel safe in public. We know that over 88 percent of Americans agree that you should get a permit before carrying concealed, so I call on North Carolina legislators to think carefully about their choice to vote in favor of the veto override, and for the sustaining of this bill.
This is not about politics, this is not about alternative agendas, and this is not about restricting people’s right to own a gun safely. This is about saving lives: the lives of children who are more likely to die by a gun than a vehicle accident, the lives of those who may be hit by a stray bullet from a concealed weapon that an 18-year-old with no proper training has in their book bag, and finally, the lives of children in rural North Carolina who yearn for a gun violence-free place to call home the way I once knew North Carolina to be.
by Dae Edge
