NC County Approves Concealed Carry in County-Owned Buildings

A local North Carolina county has approved a measure making it legal to carry a concealed firearm inside certain county-owned buildings.

According to the Salisbury Post, the Rowan County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the measure after a discussion by commissioners and a variety of public comments on both sides of the issue. The commissioners focused on school children outside of the classroom, specifically, who is responsible for notifying gun owners if school children are in parks or county-owned buildings. Under state law, guns are prohibited on school property, except for when they are safely locked in a box inside a vehicle.

“I don’t think that anybody who is carrying concealed purposely wants to violate the law,” said board vice chair Craig Pierce about carrying a concealed weapon on school property. “But, if I pull into the parking lot, get out of my car and they are running through the woods, I may not even know they are there. I don’t want somebody to get a criminal charge just because we failed to make a notification.”

As the Post reports, concealed carry in parks is permitted under state law passed by the North Carolina General Assembly late last year. As part of the law, local governments could decide whether to allow concealed handgun carry in their county buildings. Before Tuesday’s decision by the Rowan County Board of Commissioners, just three other counties voted to allow concealed carry in county buildings: Cabarrus, Alamance and Cherokee.