North Carolina gun owners are watching closely to see where their elected officials stand. Will they cave to gun control pressure or stand with law-abiding citizens exercising their rights?
In June, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoed SB 50, the legislation that would allow permitless concealed carry, or constitutional carry, of firearms by law-abiding North Carolinians. By the end of July, the Tarheel State Senate countered by overriding the governor’s original veto.
Needless to say, gun control activists and antigun groups aren’t happy about that development. They prefer infringing on Second Amendment rights and penalizing law-abiding Americans instead of holding criminals accountable for their actions when they break the law. Gun control advocates are putting pressure on N.C. state lawmakers as the bill heads back to the House at the end of August where, if the lower chamber also overrides Gov. Stein’s veto, Constitutional carry will become law.
Joining the Crowd
In North Carolina, opponents of SB 50 are crowing about public safety and the “potential for increased gun violence.” Gun control groups would prefer to leave responsible Americans defenseless and their continued shouts of “increased gun violence” ring hollow. After all, that was the playbook run after the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Bruen decision striking down New York’s subjective and overly burdensome “may issue” concealed carry permit requirements. Americans approved of the Bruen decision by a large margin. Still, several states reexamined gun control laws despite the fact that law-abiding gun owners weren’t the criminal nemesis gun control advocates predicted they would become overnight.
Now, North Carolina is at a crossroad. Lawmakers can trust those who overwhelmingly obey the law or cave to gun control pressure.
Supporters of SB 50 agree the bill protects individual liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. If the House follows the Senate and overrides Gov. Stein’s veto, it would make North Carolina the 30th Constitutional carry state. Other states that have adopted such freedom include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The House veto override vote could come as early as August, but – given the close margin in the state’s lower chamber – is not a done deal.
‘Safety Precautions’ for Whom?
Like clockwork, the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety is now declaring that the North Carolina House overriding Gov. Stein’s veto of SB 50 would “eliminate the safety precautions that are currently in place,” and that in the last several years, criminal misuse of a firearm has increased. Notably, they make no mention of the bail reform policies and soft-on-criminal prosecutors in North Carolina cities that have contributed to the surge in criminal violence.
That’s unsurprising. Gun control advocates have never been bothered over taking away Constitutional freedoms from law-abiding Americans. They grasp onto the misguided belief that guns are the root of evil, not the craven hearts of those who have no respect for the law. They would uproot the rights of those who obey the law even as they ignore criminals illegally obtaining firearms for illicit purposes, and policies which put these same criminals back onto our streets.
Taking away Constitutional rights – and the natural right to self-defense – isn’t going to stop criminals. Only enforcing the law will do that. Recent history shows that law -abiding Americans from all walks of life choose to exercise their right to keep and bear arms over surrendering to fear of crime.
No Time for Facts
Gun ownership among law-abiding Americans has surged in the last five years, including through the addition of at least 26 million new first-time gun owners since 2020. While crime spiked nationwide in the early 2020s – including in North Carolina – these high marks have come down since a few years ago. Moreover, these declines have taken place at the same time that firearm ownership increased, and more states have adopted permitless carry freedoms.
In a recent podcast from The Reload, Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics spoke about how the murder rate is down overall, and how it will likely continue to drop through the end of the year.
“Murder peaked sometime at the end of 2022. In 2023, it had the largest one-year decline ever recorded,” Asher explained. “In 2024, it had the largest one-year decline ever recorded – likely – we don’t have the FBI’s 2024 numbers yet. And 2025 we’re seeing the largest one-year decline ever recorded. So, an even larger decline than what we saw last year in our sample.”
The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski added, “and one of the most under-covered stories out there is this crime trend of just huge decreases in murder, to the point where we’re getting it seems like we’re on track, right, to have the lowest murder rate, perhaps in recorded history.”
So, while gun control activists, antigun politicians and the media continue to portray “gun violence” as an interchangeable issue with lawful gun ownership, the actual trends belie their hyperbolic predictions. Lawful gun owners simply won’t become overnight criminals if North Carolina’s House overrides Gov. Stein’s SB 50 veto.
Here’s the real truth that’s been proven in 29 other states that already adopted Constitutional or permitless carry laws. If the North Carolina House votes to override Gov. Stein’s veto, it will mean North Carolinians will have more options to exercise their Second Amendment rights and protect their families, homes and businesses from criminals that blatantly and openly ignore the laws.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Southern gun laws have always been rooted in racism. “Gotta keep them ‘darkies’ from getting guns.”
Oh look, another Miner49er posts BS.
What has he said that is untrue?
Who cares at this point really hasn’t been relevant for decades.
“What has he said that is untrue?”
The context isn’t true.
All gun control laws in all states originated rooted in either racism or ‘exclusions of classes of people’. It was just more obviously applied in southern states at one point because the Democrats holding southern states didn’t mind showing their tendency towards racism and slavery.
But its still alive today in all democrat held blue states, they just disguise it as something else. For example Oregon’s Measure 114 was following the same dangerous pattern – it was deceptively marketed as a gun control measure to curb violence but in reality it empowered the state to decide selectively who could or could not own a firearm and deliberately created barriers that disproportionately harmed marginalized black communities to deny them the right to ‘keep and bear arms’.
Even today 100% of all Americans are affected by a racist motivation gun law called the Gun Control Act. “What has he said that is untrue?”
The context isn’t true.
All gun control laws in all states originated rooted in racism. It was just more obviously applied in southern states at one point because the Democrats holding southern states didn’t mind showing their tendency towards racism and slavery.
But its still alive today in all democrat held blue states, they just disguise it as something else. Democrat president Lyndon B. Johnson feared an uprising of blacks following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and pushed for the Gun Control Act, But it just wasn’t that moment in time, Democrats had been pushing for such a law for a long time before that because they realized Jim Crow type laws would not last forever and still wanted a means to opresses black gun ownership. So at the time the most likely people to be convicted felons, individuals under indictment for a felony, fugitives from justice, unlawful users of controlled substances, individuals adjudicated as mentally defective, and individuals dishonorably discharged from the armed forces -were – because of the racist application of laws – were black people and those items became the ‘Prohibited Persons’ in the GCA.
I don’t know why it posted that way, I guess I did an errant copy-n-paste and didn’t realize it…. but cleaned up…
“What has he said that is untrue?”
The context isn’t true.
All gun control laws in all states originated rooted in racism. It was just more obviously applied in southern states at one point because the Democrats holding southern states didn’t mind showing their tendency towards racism and slavery.
All gun control laws in all states originated rooted in either racism or ‘exclusions of classes of people’. It was just more obviously applied in southern states at one point because the Democrats holding southern states didn’t mind showing their tendency towards racism and slavery.
But its still alive today in all democrat held blue states, they just disguise it as something else. For example Oregon’s Measure 114 was following the same dangerous pattern – it was deceptively marketed as a gun control measure to curb violence but in reality it empowered the state to decide selectively who could or could not own a firearm and deliberately created barriers that disproportionately harmed marginalized black communities to deny them the right to ‘keep and bear arms’.
Even today 100% of all Americans are affected by a racist motivation gun law called the Gun Control Act.
Democrat president Lyndon B. Johnson feared an uprising of blacks following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and pushed for the Gun Control Act, But it just wasn’t that moment in time, Democrats had been pushing for such a law for a long time before that because they realized Jim Crow type laws would not last forever and still wanted a means to oppresses black gun ownership. So at the time the most likely people to be convicted felons, individuals under indictment for a felony, fugitives from justice, unlawful users of controlled substances, individuals adjudicated as mentally defective, and individuals dishonorably discharged from the armed forces -were – because of the racist application of laws – were black people and those items became the ‘Prohibited Persons’ in the GCA. Thus today, all Americans are affected by a law, the GCA, that was rooted in its origins as a racist gun control law.
They should be careful or they’ll get blood in the streets like Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
They should strive to be safe like Chicago, Pilly and DC.
1 in 28 chance of being a victim of violent crime in Oakland, CA. But hey, at least they have a ton of ‘gun safety’ laws! I’m sure they’re just one more law away from making it safe.
Migrant Employment Drops, U.S.-Born Employment Rises.
”
…
Employment among “immigrants,” a deceptive category of which a significant amount is illegal aliens, has gone down by about a million for the first half of the year, even as employment among American-born workers increases.
Since all employment decisions ought to be based on merit, hiring legal immigrants is perfectly legitimate if they are the best candidates for the job. But the issue is that for years, the federal government has specifically given visas to foreign workers or overlooked the companies hiring illegals because they prefer to pay less for foreign workers than they would have to pay American workers. That is changing under the Trump administration.
…”
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/08/13/migrant-employment-drops-us-born-employment-rises-n4942662
Microsoft laid off nine thousand workers, then turned around and applied for six thousand H-1B visas to import replacements at a lower cost. This kind of corporate greed and anti-American philosophy is not only supported by Democrats, but celebrated.
Dude,
My formal education involves an extremely difficult subject and qualifies me to work in a highly skilled field. All was going well, career-wise, until companies started hiring huge numbers of people from India and China–who of course literally worked for less than half of the traditional annual compensation. Oh, and they were content to work 50+ hour weeks on a salary that was scaled for a 40 hour work week. The really sad part: the overwhelming majority of those H-1B visa workers had nowhere near the productivity of our domestic counterparts that they were replacing.
My response to a field flooded with Asian workers and hugely depressed annual salaries: I left the field and corporate world.
I expect the North Caroline House to fold. I hope that I am wrong.