Grass Roots North Carolina
Post Office Box 10665, Raleigh, NC 27605
Ph: 877.282.0939 Fax: 919.573.0354 www.GRNC.org
January 1, 2023
The Honorable Phil Berger, Senate President Pro Tempore
16 West Jones Street, Room 2007
Raleigh, NC 27601
Dear Senator Berger:
I hope you have been well. On this first day of a New Year so bright with potential, please accept my congratulations on achieving a supermajority in the North Carolina Senate.
Realizing the competing interests you face, when the 2023-2024 session of the NC General Assembly convenes, I strongly urge you to consider the interests of Second Amendment volunteers and voters who worked tirelessly to create a Republican majority capable of over-riding Governor Roy Cooper’s many gun-related vetoes.
Even beyond GRNC’s “Remember in November” voter education project which, in the 2022 elections, distributed 150,000 voter guides, including 120,000 mailed directly to gun-owning voters, the GRNC Political Victory Fund (GRNC-PVF) and our independent expenditure PAC, the Judicial Fairness Project (JFP), were highly active. As you probably know, with rare exceptions GRNC-PVF works to elect pro-gun candidates through a highly refined system of independent expenditures like those described below.
GRNC-PVF independent expenditures in General Assembly and Congressional races:
- 792,535 GRNC Political Victory Fund email recommendations sent
- 42,831 GRNC-PVF postcard election alerts mailed
- 19,765 GRNC-PVF automated telephone alerts delivered
- 67,161 Peer-to-Peer (P2P) text messages sent
Geofencing accomplishments:
This year, GRNC instituted new, cutting-edge methods to reach voters. In addition to P2P texting described above, GRNC used cutting-edge “geofencing” technology to deliver:
- 1,717,501 display impressions to mobile devices of gun-owning “drop-off” voters
- Achieving a unique reach of 29,477
- Producing 7,854 display clicks
- Resulting in 33,432 follow-up text messages
Overall, of 34 races targeted by the GRNC-PVF and JFP, we won an outstanding 27, yielding a win rate of nearly 80%. GRNC-PVF and JFP were also highly active in judicial elections, first by including judicial recommendations in all election alerts and second, by showcasing NC Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates at events such as our “Ring Steel for Freedom” event headlined by Senator-elect Ted Budd.
I have no doubt that other conservative interests will vie for precious legislative resources, but I am certain none conducted express advocacy campaigns featuring the breadth, sophistication, and effectiveness with which we supported Second Amendment candidates in the 2022 elections.
Accordingly, GRNC’s Legislative Action Team will be highly active in the upcoming session – a session in which our agenda will include (but not necessarily be limited to):
- Permitless or “constitutional” carry of concealed firearms
- Repealing our archaic, Jim Crow-era pistol purchase permit law
- Protecting religious institutions by eliminating the “church carry loophole”
- Protecting North Carolina’s long tradition of shooting on personal property
Obviously, GRNC will also continue to vociferously oppose gun control measures such as deceptive and unconstitutional “red flag” gun confiscation – a priority I’m certain you share.
Other dubious entities might claim to speak for North Carolina gun owners, but among state-level organizations, only Grass Roots North Carolina truly represents the interest of our state’s Second Amendment advocates.
Given new GOP power plus the role of gun voters in creating it, I have every confidence Republican leadership will end our frustrating seven-year stalemate and advance the rights of Second Amendment supporters who look forward to reaping the rewards they worked so hard to achieve.
Armatissimi e liberissimi,*
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
Executive Director, Rights Watch International
Radio host, Guns, Politics and Freedom
* First spoken by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern power politics, with reference to the universally armed and therefore unconquerable Swiss, Armatissimi e liberissimi means “most armed, most free.” As an expression of the importance of the right to arms to freedom, it is GRNC’s credo.