RALEIGH, N.C. — Legislation that would allow people to carry a concealed handgun in North Carolina without a permit is moving forward quickly, having cleared one committee Tuesday and being scheduled for another on Wednesday.

Current state law allows people over 21 to carry concealed handguns only after they obtain a permit from their sheriff’s office that involves completing a firearms safety and training course and passing a background check. Senate Bill 50 would remove the permit and training requirements and lower the age after which concealed carry is legal without a permit to 18.

The bill would still keep the permitting system in place “for the purpose of reciprocity when traveling in another state, to make the purchase of a firearm more efficient, or for various other reasons.”

Sen. Danny Britt, a Lumberton Republican who is one of the bill’s primary sponsors, said the permit requirement is unnecessary and doesn’t stop criminals from using guns, but instead infringes on the rights of responsible gun owners.

Much of the discussion among lawmakers over the bill during Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee focused on the current permitting process.

Britt and other Republican sponsors of the bill said the approval of concealed carry permits can be arbitrary and take months. They also questioned whether the safety training that is currently required to obtain a permit is necessary.

Supporters say permit requirement infringes on constitutional rights

Asked what problem the bill is trying to solve, Britt said that people have a constitutional right to be able to carry a concealed handgun for their protection “without having to jump through the hoops that you do for a concealed carry permit.”

Britt pointed to, as an example, a victim of domestic violence who may want to start carrying a handgun to protect themselves and keep it concealed “because they don’t know where that next attack might occur.”

In response to another question about why the bill lowers the age after which concealed carry is legal from 21 to 18, Britt said lawmakers wanted to match that to current law that allows open carry in the state after 18 as well.

Democrats, speaking against the bill, said that if the current permitting process is flawed or takes too long at certain sheriff’s offices, lawmakers should be focused on fixing it instead of removing the requirements that people undergo training and a background check.

Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Charlotte Democrat, said that getting rid of the permit requirement would make the jobs of police officers more dangerous, and lead to more officer deaths.

“You don’t ever know what type of person you’re going to be interacting with,” Mohammed said of traffic stops and other situations police officers find themselves in every day. “You don’t know if someone’s had a bad day, you don’t know if someone’s been involved in a road rage incident.”

Raleigh police officer tells committee permits keep people safe

A number of gun safety advocates also spoke against the bill, as did Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead. The committee also heard from Hattie Gawande, a Raleigh police officer who attended Tuesday’s meeting with a few other members of her patrol squad.

Gawande, who said she was only speaking for herself and not the Raleigh Police Department, told lawmakers that the permit requirement currently in place keeps police officers and the public safe by allowing officers to “intervene when someone dangerous is carrying concealed and shouldn’t be.”

She gave the example of a 911 call she responded to this past Sunday, when she said a woman returning home with her baby reported “two strange men in her apartment parking lot,” one of whom had a gray handgun tucked in his pants.

Gawande said the men saw the woman had a baby with her and walked away. When she located them a few blocks away, she noticed the handle of the gun. The man with the concealed gun ran away when he saw her patrol car.

Under current law, Gawande said, she could have pursued the man and detained him on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, confiscate the gun, “and if the situation warranted, arrested him for the concealed carry violation.”

“Law-abiding North Carolinians get the permit and carry openly; criminals do not,” Gawande said. “If this bill passes, when the same situation occurs again, I have to just let them go.”

Where the concealed carry bills go from here

After clearing Tuesday’s committee, SB 50 will next be taken up by the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday afternoon. That’s the final stop for the bill before it can get a vote by the full chamber. That’s likely to happen, since the bill this year has the backing of Senate leader Phil Berger.

Lawmakers in the House have filed their own bill that would also allow concealed carry of handguns without a permit.

A similar bill filed by House Republicans in 2023 appeared to have enough support to advance that year and quickly passed two committees ahead of a key legislative deadline, but was ultimately pulled.

House Speaker Destin Hall, meeting last week with gun rights advocates who have been calling for the permit requirement to be done away with, said he believes the House GOP is close to ready to move their bill forward as well.

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