North Carolina needs a common sense gun law. 

Fear of gang violence helped pass the Federal Firearms Act of 1938. That law curbed the use of the infamous sub-machine gun, silencers and the like. 

Today, it’s not organized crime, but fear of terrorists. Terrorist inspired violence and the violent acts of the deranged that motivate the majority of our citizens to support common sense gun control measures. This is especially true with semi-automatic long guns. The weapons, though occasionally repurposed as hunting implements are designed for one purpose – the efficient killing of human beings. They are weapons of war. 

Though the country is awash in these weapons. We can do some things to make them more difficult to obtain in the future.  Here are my common sense suggestions for North Carolina legislation.

• Legislate an excise tax on the manufacture or sale of automatic or semiautomatic firearms.
• Record the sale of all automatic or semiautomatic firearms in a state registry.
• Establish 21 as the legal age to purchase automatic or semiautomatic firearms, unless purchaser is a member of the armed forces.
• Prohibit the sale of firearms to individuals under indictment for violent crimes, convicted of crimes of violence or on a federal no fly list.
• Require background checks by unlicensed private sellers who are not engaged in gun dealing as a business and are not subject to checks under federal law
• Ban large capacity ammunition magazines, limiting them to 10 rounds.
• Ban the sale or armor piercing rounds to the civilian population.
• Require Sheriffs to conduct periodic gun safety courses, for which a nominal fee can be charged.
• Authorize a study of establishing public gun ranges in counties with populations of 150,000 or higher.

The usual suspects will, no doubt, oppose any change from the status quo. If you think that these changes in our statutes make sense and do not infringe upon your 2^nd Amendment rights, then join with me in working for common sense gun laws.