North Carolina Repeals Jim Crow-Era Gun Registry

While “progressive” parts of the Republic continue to push for more abusive citizen control laws, my home state of North Carolina is attempting to right past wrongs.

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One of their efforts includes repealing Durham’s Jim Crow-era gun registration law:

Durham County officials are awaiting a ruling from the state on what to do with tens of thousands of gun owners’ personal information now that the county’s Jim Crow-era gun registry has been repealed in a “very large” legislative victory.

“I have asked that question to the people in Raleigh at the Administrative Office of the Courts, and they are researching it, and they are supposed to get back to me to let me know what’s going to happen with these,” said Cindy Buchanan, Durham County assistant clerk of court/head cashier. “So right now I don’t have an answer.”

A local legislative bill created Durham County’s gun roll, the only firearm registration system in North Carolina, in 1935.

State Sen. Mike Woodard, D-Durham, introduced a local bill that was passed into law June 18 abolishing the registration requirement. Because it was a local bill, it became law without the governor’s signature after passing both chambers of the General Assembly.

“We’ve got an alert going out right now to have people contact the county commission to demand these records be destroyed,” said Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, a nonprofit gun rights organization.

“If that doesn’t work, I suppose we need to look into legal action. Gun registration is not legal in North Carolina, period, end of story,” Valone said.

“Right now, they’re back here in my office under lock and key,” Buchanan said of the gun registrations. “I’ve got two big filing cabinets full.”

She said it’s difficult to tell how many gun registrations were entered every year, and she did not know how many are contained in the filing cabinets. “It’s not on any kind of database as far as a computer, and it doesn’t keep any running account,” Buchanan said. “It’s all done by paper,” and forms are filed alphabetically, not by year.

When registering, a gun owner would bring in information on the gun, fill out the paperwork, and get an old-fashioned carbon copy, with the original going into the county files.

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To the best of my knowledge, there is one more Jim Crow-era law left in North Carolina, which the state’s sheriffs shamefully campaigned for and managed to keep in recent years. Citizens without a concealed carry permit must obtain a pistol permit from their local sheriffs to purchase a handgun. Hopefully, this last remaining relic will be removed in future reform efforts.

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