North Carolinians still aren’t allowed to carry a concealed handgun without a permit, unlike the residents of nearly every other Republican-led state in the country. Getting rid of the state’s concealed carry requirements was a top priority of some GOP state lawmakers and gun-rights activists this year. But so far, they’ve come up short so far.
Republican state lawmakers voted to pass Senate Bill 50 more than a year ago. The bill would lower the age for owning handguns from 21 to 18. It would also let almost any adult carry a concealed gun in public without needing a permit, or any of the training that goes into getting that permit.
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Democratic Gov. Josh Stein vetoed the bill in June 2025, writing in part that “authorizing teenagers to carry a concealed weapon with no training whatsoever is dangerous.”
In the 14 months since then, the legislature has successfully voted to override almost all of Stein’s vetoes — but not for this bill, which supporters call “Constitutional Carry.” The override passed the Senate but ran into trouble in the House. Two House Republicans voted against the bill originally, nearly a dozen more skipped the vote, and House Speaker Destin Hall hasn’t attempted a veto override vote in his chamber — an indication such an effort would likely fail.
That’s unacceptable to groups such as Grassroots NC, a conservative Second Amendment advocacy organization.
“Speaker Hall needs to marshal his votes and get these people out to vote to override this veto, so that we can better enhance people's ability to protect themselves," Grassroots NC President Paul Valone told WRAL in an interview.
Another organizer with the group, Andy Stevens, recently wrote on social media to encourage his gun-rights-supporting followers not to vote for any House Republicans this year. Every seat in the state legislature is up for grabs, as they are every two years. “Let NC House leadership see the value of gun rights voters by leaving your House race blank or voting for a Libertarian in November,” Stevens wrote.
Hall has noted that the bill isn’t officially dead yet. The election is in November, but new lawmakers won’t be sworn in until January. It’s possible the legislature will return for more votes after the election but before the end of the year, and the House might try then to pass constitutional carry into law, he said.
"Any bill that's on the calendar that has been vetoed, we intend to override at some point if we possibly can," Hall told reporters this week. "I anticipate at least some of them will be overridden whenever we come back."
The legislature also has unresolved veto overrides on homelessness and one lingering anti-diversity effort that they could override later this year, in addition to the gun bill. There also two bills that only recently passed, to change rules for the courts system and election laws, which Stein could veto in the coming days.
So far the legislature has voted to override 11 of Stein’s 15 vetoes in the 2025-26 session, and on another, lawmakers rewrote another bill to address Stein’s concerns.
‘We won’t stop’
Under current law, to legally carry a concealed gun in North Carolina, people need a permit. To get a permit applicants must undergo a background check by their local sheriff, pay an $80 fee, and pass tests to prove they can shoot relatively accurately and that they understand the relevant laws on gun possession and self-defense.
Supporters of the bill said all those requirements were too much of a burden on people who want to carry a gun tucked into a waistband, stored in a purse or otherwise concealed. Eliminating those requirements would help public safety by putting more guns into more people’s hands more easily, they said.
But critics of the bill said it would harm public safety — not just by letting unvetted gun-owners carry in public, but also by effectively ending the legal ability of law enforcement officers to stop and search suspicious people with guns to check if they had a permit.
"This particular bill is a very dangerous bill," Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, told WRAL Thursday.
Nationwide 29 states have adopted some form of permitless or constitutional carry, including Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. Nearly all have done so only within the past decade.
But while it’s a new trend, it’s a popular one in conservative-leaning states. Other than North Carolina, Wisconsin is the only state currently with a Republican-led legislature that hasn’t passed such a law.
Many members of law enforcement have opposed this legislation, including Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead and several Raleigh police officers, who spoke in front of a Senate committee in March 2025.
Raleigh Police officer Hattie Gawande said during that hearing that she wasn’t speaking on behalf of the police department. But she made sure to point out her fellow cops sitting in the audience. “Concealed-carry permits protect police officers and the public,” she told the committee last year. “It allows us to intervene when someone dangerous is carrying concealed and shouldn't be.”
The North Carolina Sheriffs Association opposed the bill in past legislative sessions. This time the group decided to stay neutral, neither supporting or opposing the idea.
The bill didn’t pass by a wide margin in the House in June 2025, despite Republicans having a near supermajority. The vote count was 59-to-48. Two Republicans — state Reps. Ted Davis of New Hanover County and William Brisson of Bladen County — joined Democrats in voting against it. Another 10 GOP members were absent.
Davis and Brisson didn’t immediately respond to WRAL’s request for comment.
Valone wants this into law before the end of the year. If House lawmakers don’t override Stein’s veto before the General Assembly adjourns sine die, the bill would die and would have to be reintroduced next year. If that happens, he said, he and others will be back at the legislature fighting for it.
“This is the furthest we have gotten with a constitutional carry bill, and if we need to, we will bring it up next year,” Valone said. “We won’t stop.”