Grass Roots North Carolina / Forum For Firearms Education
Post Office Box 10665, Raleigh, NC 27605
877.282.0939877.282.0939 (Phone) 919.573.0354 (Fax) www.GRNC.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: 704.907.9206
E-mail: President@GRNC.org
Release date: October 1, 2014
On 1st anniversary of ‘guns in bars’ …
… where’s the mayhem?
House Bill 937, which became effective on October 1, 2013, dramatically expanded North Carolina’s concealed handgun law into restaurants where alcohol is sold and consumed, assemblies of people for which admission is charged, parades and funerals, further into state and municipal parks, and even to a limited extent into educational properties.
‘Guns and alcohol don’t mix’?
As always when we expand concealed handgun laws, opponents and media naysayers predicted shootings in bars, guns stolen from vehicles at schools, and various other sorts of mayhem using platitudes like “guns and alcohol don’t mix.”
GRNC explained endlessly that concealed handgun permit-holders, by virtue of background checks and training, had proven themselves sane, sober and law-abiding since 1995, with a rate of permit revocation on the order of three tens of a single percent. We explained that permit-holders in restaurants would still be prohibited from imbibing alcohol.
But the dire predictions persisted. Editorials ridiculed legislators. UNC president Tom Ross sent UNC police chiefs to testify against the bill, claiming it would hamper their ability to protect students. Gun control activists pushed restaurants to post against concealed carry.
So what has happened?
It has now been one year since HB 937 became effective. So what has happened? Nothing. GRNC monitors clipping services for gun-related incidents. Just like Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee and other states which adopted restaurant carry, however, we have been unable to find a single instance of a concealed handgun permit-holder misusing a gun in a restaurant or educational property.
So when will the media naysayers apologize? Will the media acknowledge the anniversary and the absolute lack of negative impact?
NC State Fair: The latest battleground
In the latest battle, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler says he will post the North Carolina State Fair against concealed carry even though statutes adopted in HB 937 now prohibit him from doing so. He apparently believes that even despite passing concealed carry in 1995; Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground and expanded concealed carry into parks and elsewhere in 2011; and HB 937 in 2013 – all without the mayhem predicted by opponents – somehow, the state fair must be a different and more dangerous place than all the others.
So GRNC asks both Troxler and the media, “Where’s the mayhem?”