News & Record: A proposed bill by a family law attorney from Greensboro would re-open pistol purchase permit and concealed carry weapons permit records to domestic violence victims and require they be given notice when abusers are trying to obtain a weapon.
Effective Oct. 1, 2013, the concealed carry permit and pistol purchase permit records maintained by county sheriffs are exempted from the North Carolina Open Records Law.
In response to a domestic violence homicide in Greensboro earlier this year, attorney Carolyn Woodruff has proposed making those records accessible to domestic violence victims who have filed for a restraining order (known in the court system as a 50B order after the chapter of state statutes that governs it). The victim in the Greensboro case, Laurissa Armstrong, filed for a restraining order, which was later denied. Her ex-husband then obtained a pistol purchase permit and bought a gun. They were both found dead.
Woodruff’s proposal would give the courts greater authority to prevent an abuser from obtaining a gun. It would also create a right of access to gun permit information for the domestic violence victim, and require that the sheriff attempt to contact the victim before granting a request for a purchase permit.
Read more about it here.