By Kevin Wilson
The right to keep and bear arms has been the subject of fierce debate as of late. That should come to no surprise to any of our regular readers. We’ve been covering the various controversies from a variety of angles. Most of those angles have admittedly been from the starting point that the controversy is stupid, but hey. It works.
One thing we haven’t done, and to the best of my knowledge hasn’t been done, is cover the real world process of getting a concealed carry permit. And by that I don’t mean googling the process, listing the steps, and providing color commentary. No, this is something I’m doing right now, as you’re reading this.
As a resident of North Carolina, I’ve been afforded the opportunity to legally open carry, a privilege I’ve made use of over the years frequently. By using a little common sense, I’ve been able to avoid any of the troubles associated with the practice, and it just wasn’t worth it to go through the effort of getting a concealed carry permit. Unfortunately, attitudes towards open carry have shifted over the last year. What with the current calls among anti gun groups to harass folks openly carrying, I thought it might be wise to get the ball rolling on a permit to carry on the down low.
This is about how much sense concealed carry laws make.
The first step, at least in North Carolina, is to attend a training class. In my part of the state, that meant getting a hold of a fellow named Tommy Massey. Tommy is something of a fixture in Rockingham County. Standing at six foot three and in excess of three hundred pounds, with a booming voice and an affable personality, he’s the sort of person you’d expect to find behind a pulpit in this part of the South. That’s fairly appropriate, because he’s a full time pastor at a local church. He’s also an avid gun nut who’s been teaching concealed carry classes for several years now.
For those with $75 and a free Saturday, getting registered for class is as simple as sending him a message on Facebook. Since he’s the go to guy in this necking the woods, that’s exactly what I did.
Class started a little after 0800 in the morning. There were about 50 people all told, ranging from young men and women who were barely old enough to buy a handgun to a couple of folks who couldn’t find their early twenties with a team of archaeologists and an encyclopedia. We met in the back of a hardware store that agreed to let Tommy use the space, presumably because having a several hundred people a year who would soon be in the market for guns that they conveniently sold was good for business.
What followed was an amazing lesson in the institutional insanity that is the current crop of North Carolina gun control laws.
The first forty five minutes or so was dedicated to firearms safety. The class was geared towards the lowest common denominator; as a somewhat experienced shooter I would have been bored to tears if not for the colorful delivery. It was all extremely basic stuff that I drilled into my head since I was a kid: always assume the gun is loaded, always point it in a safe direction, keep your finger off the trigger, that sort of stuff. Basic, but extremely important, and as I would come to realize later, absolutely necessary. There were several students who had never even seen a gun being fired, much less taken one to the range themselves.
After that, I expected some basic marksmanship stuff, but alas, it was not to be. Instead, we got a crash course on the Byzantine maze of gun laws that make life hell for anyone who dares use their weapon to defend themselves.
There are four separate criteria that must be met before use of deadly force is authorized in North Carolina. You have to believe that deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death, great bodily harm, or sexual assault. After the fact, the case will be reviewed to see if a person of ordinary firmness would have reached the same conclusion. It can’t be a fight you started either. If you instigated the conflict, you just have to take what’s coming to you. And assuming that all the above criteria have been met, the force used can’t be excessive.
You’ll note that all four of those points are highly subjective. As Tommy pointed out, a female will almost always have an easier time meeting them, as she can claim fear of sexual assault from a male attacker. A male, on the other hand, will have a hard time justifying deadly force against an unarmed attacker, as simple assault is not a justifiable reason to shoot someone. If you’re not facing down multiple individuals, or the guy isn’t armed with someone, you’d best hope you can fight them off.
Excessive force is also extremely difficult to quantify. In a life or death situation, most folks tend to panic fire without proper training. According to the handout provided, the average hit rate is between 4-6% for civilian shooters. If you dump a magazine and hit them once or twice, that’s fine. But if you somehow, miraculously, get that whole magazine in the X-ring, you might end up in serious trouble.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. We spent all morning going over the laws, and just before lunch, the Rockingham County sheriff, Sam Page, stopped by to take questions from the class. While he was able to answer questions, the laws change so often that even he wasn’t completely up to date. Apparently, tweaking gun laws every six months or so is a bit of a hobby for the NC Legislature.
Needless to say, my head was spinning by the time we broke for lunch. Fortunately, the next step was the hands on marksmanship section. Each student was to fire thirty rounds from the handgun of their choice. If they didn’t have one, rentals were available. Tommy has a nice collection of Ruger Mk 2 target pistols just for that purpose.
It was when we got to the range that I realized the safety brief wasn’t just mandatory tail covering. There were several students who barely knew which end went bang. Without the vigilant eye of the range safeties, things could have gone rather badly. As it was, I got my rounds in center mass and got the hell out of the way. 
So what’s the takeaway from all this? Well, I’m convinced folks like Tommy do good work. They take the hand they’re dealt and do their best to make sure the folks who leave their class are ready to go out into the world and carry safely and responsibly. It’s not their fault that the mandated material is grossly inadequate in many ways. The course really needs to be a two day affair, and while there are longer ones available, they tend to be more expensive as well. The laws themselves are an ever shifting, barely cohesive mess that serve little purpose other than to keep lawyers in bespoke suits. You could spend a whole day on the law alone, and having a mandated day devoted solely to actually teaching folks to shoot would be nice. Make an abbreviated course available to military and law enforcement, and let everyone else actually learn how not to flag the person next to them while reloading.
The next step is to take the shiny new certificate of completion down to the sheriff’s office in my home county and apply for the permit itself. Since there’s a 6-8 week wait in my county just for an appointment, it’s gonna be a little while before the next installment.