On June 16, North Carolina’s GOP-controlled house sided with Gabby Giffords and voted 78-37 to keep handgun purchasing restrictions in place for law-abiding North Carolinians.
As recently as June 7—just four days after New Jersey’s Carol Bowne was stabbed to death while waiting for state permission to own a gun for self-defense—Breitbart News reported that Giffords & Co. were pushing to make sure North Carolinians had to continue seeking state permission for handgun purchases via a permit-to-purchase requirement which is very similar to the one in New Jersey.
State representative Jacqueline Schaffer (R-Charlotte) had put forward HB 562: legislation to repeal the permit-to-purchase requirement in order to remove a clear hindrance to the exercise of Second Amendment rights.
Giffords & Co. and Bloomberg-funded groups Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action all fought Schaffer’s legislation, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in an attempt to persuade state representatives to keep the gun control restrictions in place. And on Tuesday, the North Carolina GOP folded, passing Schaffer’s bill but only after making changes to keep the permit to purchase a gun in place.
After the GOP folded, Giffords’s gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions celebrated on Facebook:
Good news in North Carolina! Leaders in the House just voted to protect the existing background checks for handgun sales. They said NO to repealing this commonsense law and NO to opening up new loopholes that could let dangerous people get guns. Now it’s time for legislators in the Senate to follow their lead.
What Giffords & Co. describe as good news is really bad news for North Carolinians, who will now be forced to continue begging government officials for permission to buy a handgun for self-defense, unless the state senate stands up and fights for the freedom spurned by GOP reps.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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