April 22, 2024
The Honorable Phil Berger, Senate President Pro Tempore
16 West Jones Street, Room 2007
Raleigh, NC 27601
Dear Senator Berger:
Please accept my thanks for the work done by you and Senate Republicans in passing Senate Bill 41, “Guarantee 2nd Amend Freedom and Protections.” I confess, however, that I was taken aback when I heard you say the following: “We have passed a substantial bill dealing with some concerns about the Second Amendment. We have done away with the pistol purchase permit which was the number one goal of many of the gun rights groups for a long period of time. I just don’t know if there is a need for us to delve into additional issues dealing with guns.” [Emphasis added]
Your perception of “need” aside, I’m sure you agree that restoration of constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms should not be rationed. Over the decades, Americans’ rights – including the right to carry firearms for self-protection – have been steadily eroded. It was certainly not the Framers’ intention that a governmental permission slip be required to carry firearms, concealed or otherwise. House Bill 189, “Freedom to Carry NC,” is intended to restore the Framers’ ideals.
As I told Cam Edwards on Townhall Media’s highly popular “Cam & Co.”: “I guess it’s not a Bill of Rights anymore but a Bill of Needs, and the person who’s going to decide whether we ‘need’ Constitutional Carry or not is Phil Berger, self-appointed arbiter of needs.”
In passing constitutional carry, twenty-nine states have now done what North Carolina should have done long ago. That means North Carolina Republicans are now trailing the GOP in other states which have made significant inroads in restoring constitutional freedoms too long curtailed.
Although Republicans undoubtedly want support from gun voters in November, the reality is that North Carolina now falls within a distinct minority of “red” states which have failed to restore constitutionally guaranteed freedoms to their citizens, which may suppress critical voter turnout.
As you will see in coming days, thousands of North Carolinians have already signed GRNC’s petition for passage of HB 189. I strongly urge you to use the opportunity, created by a supermajority which gun voters helped you secure, to join the twenty-nine other states which have now adopted some form of permitless or “constitutional” concealed carry by giving an immediate vote to HB 189.
Armatissimi e liberissimi,*
F. Paul Valone
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.