NC gun rights groups vow to fight new proposed rules for concealed carry training

The North Carolina General Assembly passed major gun rights legislation earlier this year when GOP lawmakers successfully repealed the state’s longstanding permit requirement for buying handguns.

Gun rights activists hoped to keep the momentum going by repealing the permit law for carrying concealed guns as well, but that bill stalled in the legislature with GOP leaders indicating that further action by lawmakers probably wasn’t needed at the time.

With legislative business coming to a halt over the summer, and the prospects of the so-called “constitutional carry” bill remaining unclear, gun rights advocates have turned their attention to the N.C. Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission, which has proposed new rules governing how concealed carry safety and training courses are administered.

The suggested changes include requiring instructors to submit “pre-delivery reports” before each class they teach, notifying NCDOJ staff so they can attend classes and audit how instructors are conducting their courses, and maintaining rosters of their students so that staff have a way of contacting them if an instructor is being investigated for misconduct.

More than 100 instructors who teach concealed carry classes all over the state filled a large meeting room at Wake Technical Community College Wednesday morning to register their opposition to the proposed changes, which they said would impose an unnecessary burden on them and their students. The meeting, which was held by the commission’s planning and standards committee, was led by Leslie Cooley Dismukes, a commission member who also serves as criminal bureau chief at the North Carolina Department of Justice.

An explanation of the new proposed rules handed out to the instructors who traveled to Raleigh for Wednesday’s meeting said the commission directed staff at the NCDOJ’s Criminal Justice Standards Division to begin drafting changes to the current rules in August 2022 to crack down on multiple instances of possible misconduct, including one instructor who allegedly sold course completion certifications at a local gun store, and another who was reported for teaching a concealed carry class under the influence of alcohol.

Many of the instructors who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting argued that the changes the commission was proposing would cause too much of a disruption to the vast majority of law-abiding instructors, and that such sweeping changes weren’t necessary to find the few instructors whom the commission cited as examples for why stricter regulations were needed.

“It seems the burden is being put on the instructors to help the state find bad instructors, and I think that the state needs to police its own instructors far better than what they’re doing now, if that is such a concern,” said Harvey Morse, who runs the Concealed Carry Academy in Waynesville.

Gun rights group vows to fight rules if changes not made

Grass Roots North Carolina — one of the leading gun rights groups in the state, which helped craft the pistol permit repeal that was enacted in April — said in flyers it was handing out at Wednesday’s meeting that the “handful of transgressions” cited by the commission was “insignificant” considering there are more than 2,000 instructors who currently operate across North Carolina.

Paul Valone, the organization’s president, said that a representative from Grass Roots NC had sat in on a meeting about the proposed rules with NCDOJ staff on Monday. The meeting included Rep. Keith Kidwell, a Beaufort Republican, who leads the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and was one of the primary sponsors of House Bill 189, the currently stalled constitutional carry bill that would also get rid of the permit requirement for concealed carry.

Valone said his group only sat in on that meeting to observe the discussions, not participate.

As of Wednesday, the commission had agreed to lower the “pre-delivery” reporting requirement from 30 days before a class is taught to seven days. But according to Valone, even a full week’s notice would be an excessive burden — a point also raised by several other instructors who told the commission that most of their classes are scheduled on an ad hoc basis and are often rescheduled or canceled to accommodate their customers.

The commission also heard several concerns about the proposed class rosters that instructors would need to maintain. Many people said that they would not feel comfortable handing over the personal identifying information of their customers to state officials, and argued that officials can already track people taking classes through the permitting system.

“The fact is that many people who take concealed carry classes don’t have any intention of getting a permit,” Valone said. “The state has no business having access to their names. None whatsoever.”

Valone also said that if the commission moves forward with the rules as currently written, Grass Roots NC would object to their adoption and request legislative review.

A follow-up meeting on the proposed rules, which will be held by the full commission, is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Friday.

During that meeting, the planning and standards committee is expected to recommend that the commission wait until a scheduled meeting on Nov. 17 to take up the rules, according to NCDOJ spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed.