RALEIGH – Today, in response to Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker’s announcement that he would halt the issuance of new handgun permits, Civitas Institute President Donald Bryson made the following statement:
“Unfortunately, it appears that Sheriff Baker is creating power to stop many firearm sales in Wake County. Nothing in state law provides a county sheriff to halt the legal purchase of firearms or issue pistol permits, wholesale. All he has done with this arbitrary order is to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising a right explicitly laid out in the state and federal constitutions. Sheriff Baker is pandering to a political base, and nothing in his order does anything to prevent unlawful use or ownership of firearms.
It is not the law-abiding citizens – the ones coming to the Wake County Sheriff’s Office for a permit – with which he should be concerned. Instead, Sheriff Baker is using the permitting process in state law, which says a ‘sheriff shall issue’ the permit, to impose a de facto ban on gun sales. A public health crisis is not the time to make up excuses to exceed the limits of governmental power.”
Founded in 2005, the Civitas Institute is a Raleigh, NC-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit policy organization that fights to remove barriers to freedom so that all North Carolinians can enjoy a better life.
