Given efforts to eradicate racism, you might expect a governor to eagerly sign repeal of a Jim Crow-era law which, by one account, discriminates against Black Americans even today.
But not if the governor is Roy Cooper and the law is our 1919 pistol purchase permit system, which researchers suggest was enacted to deny handguns to Black Americans. Cooper recently vetoed House Bill 398 to repeal the system.
Even gun control stalwarts like Mecklenburg County’s Sen. Natasha Marcus acknowledge the potential Jim Crow origins of the permit law, as they should. Professor Clayton Cramer, author of “The Racist Roots of Gun Control,” posits that its vague “good moral character” requirement was actually doublespeak for race.
According to a North Carolina Law Review paper, discrimination in permit denials exists even today with “…Black applicants experiencing a rejection rate of approximately three times the rate of White applicants.”
— Lt. Governor Mark Robinson and F. Paul Valone in Gov. Cooper’s latest veto is another assault on gun rights