As the 2019 General Assembly draws to a close, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence has important legislative victories to share and celebrate. All of these were made possible by your contributions and actions.

HB 508, the Firearms Safe Storage Awareness Initiative, called for an initiative to educate the public about safe firearm storage, and to facilitate the distribution of gun locks. This initiative is so important because over 40% of North Carolina residents own a firearm, yet only about half of these gun owners and less than half of gun-owning parents keep them secured.

NCGV was a part of the 2017 Child Fatality Task Force’s Firearm Safety Stakeholder group that developed this proposal.

NCGV supporters called and emailed to support HB 508 and our lobbyists helped get the initiative included into the budget bill. In the end, the budget was vetoed by Governor and this measure was not included in the “mini budgets”. But getting it in the broad budget bill was a big step forward. With your support we will again fight for its inclusion in next year’s budget or as a stand-alone bill.

HB 499, Omnibus Gun Changes, was a dangerous bill that would have significantly weakened our gun laws. Most notably, it would have: 

• Repealed portions of NC’s concealed carry permitting system which would essentially allow 18 year olds with no training and no background check to carry a concealed gun.
• Permitted approved school employees to carry a concealed gun in K-12 schools while performing their duties.
• Allowed legislators and staff to carry weapons at the General Assembly.

Again, NCGV was present every day at the General Assembly talking with key lawmakers about the dangers of this bill while our supporters across the state called and emailed legislators to express their opposition. These contacts worked! HB 499 was never brought up for a vote.

Rep. Pitman tried to offer an amendment to arm educators in K-12 schools to the School Safety Omnibus bill, SB 5. NCGV worked with legislative leaders to ensure that the amendment did not come up for a vote. We were successful!

The School Security Act of 2019, SB 192, also would have allowed for K-12 educators to be armed and given them a 5% salary supplement! We conducted an educational campaign in key districts to talk about the dangers of this bill, educated our supporters on the bill prior to their meetings with key legislators, and spoke to influential legislators about stopping this bill. This bill also was never brought up for a vote!

NCGV took strategic steps on each damaging bill to create a successful plan to stop each one. We are excited to have made it through the legislative session without passage of any harmful bills.

Thanks to the many supporters who called, emailed, and met with legislators this session! We are grateful for your partnership, and proud of our work together to help keep our state a safer place for all of us.

This was all made possible by your support. We hope that you will continue to support us to sustain our victories in 2020 because any of these bills can be acted on next year.