RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
The North Carolina Association of Police Chiefs is against House Bill 746, which a person can carry a concealed gun, but would allow people to carry without a permit and no formal training, which is required now.
The bill would allow citizens age 18 and older, who legally own a gun, to carry it concealed without a permit, anywhere they can carry it openly.
It now will head to the Senate.
“Most people dying are being killed with guns,” said Judy Williams, the leader of the organization Mothers Of Murdered Offspring. She is working to combat rising violent crime in Charlotte.
Williams is worried the bill, if passed, will lead to more violence.
“I don’t think it’s going to help what’s going on right now,” Williams said
Gun rights advocate Julia Hill disagrees.
Hill thinks communities would be safer with more people carrying concealed weapons.
“If the general public knew that more people would be carrying, then they’d probably think twice about trying to jump somebody or go after them,” Hill said.
Hill said that because people buying guns would still have to go through background checks, gun owners should not have to go through another step for a concealed carry permit when, she says, criminals break the law anyway.
“I like to know as a law-abiding citizen that I can, in a lawful way, protect myself if the need be against somebody who won’t follow the rules,” Hill said.
If HB 746 becomes law, there are several places, including courthouses and health care facilities, in which people would not be allowed to carry a concealed weapon.
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