Take a moment to read Christian Dem in NC's diary on N.C. House Bill 937, "Proposed NC law would do away with handgun permits." Today in committee at the N.C. General Assembly, the bill was ... well ... not even "amended" but outright substituted with the guts of some other crazy idea altogether to eliminate state requirements for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
The legislation, tabled a month ago after the Republican supermajority refused to even hear even one of the 12 amendments aimed at injecting some common sense into the draft, has come back as a brain-eating Frankenstein zombie bill.
In this morning's Senate committee hearing, legislators ignored the more than a dozen uniformed university police officers who came to oppose the bill. Do they have no respect for the guts it takes for a uniformed police officer to attend a legislative committee hearing to oppose a specific bill?
This is beyond frustrating. North Carolina's legislators have heard from pediatricians, social workers, law-enforcement officials and officers, university administrators, victims of gun violence, survivors of hostage situations involving firearms, the families of women shot to death after taking out restraining orders on abusive partners who then bought firearms, from area mayors -- all opposed to this illogical bill, even in its slightly less crazy form.
Read Christian Dem in NC's diary. Then make some calls -- or, if you're in the Raleigh area, stop by the NCGA sometime this week and visit with your senator and representative to oppose HB 937.