Grass Roots North Carolina / Forum for Firearms Education
Post Office Box 10665, Raleigh, NC 27605
877.282.0939 (Phone) 919.573.0354 (Fax) www.GRNC.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release date: April 6, 2026
Press release link: https://www.grnc.org/defend-your-rights/press-releases
GRNC files amicus brief in NC Supreme Court
on felony firearms law
Building on an increasing body of jurisprudence defining individual rights under the Second Amendment, constitutional law attorney Tyler Brooks has filed an amicus curiae brief with the North Carolina Supreme Court on behalf of Grass Roots North Carolina in support of the defendant in State v. Ducker. The case challenges the constitutionality of North Carolina felony firearms law.
Background
At issue is increasing “overcriminalization” of relatively minor offenses which, in the founding days of our nation, would not have deprived citizens of their God-given rights, including the right to keep and bear arms. As expressed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, “[C]riminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something.”
In D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed an individual right to keep and bear arms; in McDonald v. Chicago, SCOTUS “incorporated” the Second Amendment, affirming that under the Fourteenth Amendment, it applied to states as well as the federal government; and in NSRPA v. Bruen, SCOTUS affirmed an individual right to bear arms outside the home.
But equally important, the Bruen decision struck down the two-step “balancing test” being used by lower courts to relegate the Second Amendment to what Justice Clarence Thomas called a “second class right,” and the Court also ruled that any modern gun law must be consistent with the “history and tradition” of gun laws at the founding of our Republic.
Why Ducker?
Even beyond overcriminalization, Attorney Brooks argues in the GRNC brief that at the time of our Founding, a “felony” was often a capital offense saying, “The status of convicted felon no longer necessarily carries with it the same severe legal penalties and social opprobrium it would have when either the North Carolina Constitutions of 1776 or 1868 were adopted or when the Second Amendment was ratified.”
Further, when arrested as a felon-in-possession of a firearm, Eric James Ducker had gone 15 years since a single non-violent felony during which time he had been otherwise law-abiding. He stopped for police voluntarily and was completely cooperative, things for which the NC Supreme Court previously struck down North Carolina’s felony firearm statute “as applied” to the plaintiff in Britt v. State.
Consequently, Brooks’ brief on behalf of GRNC argues that the NC Supreme Court should overturn the NC Court of Appeals decision against Ducker.
GRNC’s historical role
Decades ago, GRNC President Paul Valone testified to the North Carolina House Judiciary Committee against the constitutionality of the then-proposed 2004 change to N.C.G.S. § 14-415.1 which made it a crime for a felon to possess a rifle or shotgun in his or her home – something which had previously been legal. It was that change under which attorney Dan Hardaway (who was also a GRNC attorney in a different case) successfully argued to the NC Supreme Court that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to Barney Britt.
Said GRNC President Paul Valone:
“For many years Grass Roots North Carolina has received reports from otherwise lawful North Carolinians deprived of their rights under the Second Amendment, often due to minor offenses or adjudications committed as a juvenile. It is high time for the Courts to address both the increasing overcriminalization of otherwise law-abiding citizens over minor offenses or adjudications under which they may not be deprived of their rights to life, liberty, or property, but are routinely being deprived of their right to keep and bear arms. GRNC is proud to play a role in helping to reverse that trend.”
Founded in 1994, Grass Roots North Carolina is an all-volunteer 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to preserving individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with emphasis on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
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