Here at the Humble SouthPaw, we’re all about cutting through the anti-gun noise and standing up for the truth, especially when it comes to our Second Amendment rights. I was in the room at the recent North Carolina House Judiciary 2 Committee meeting, where Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover) took aim at Senate Bill 50, the Freedom to Carry NC Act. This bill would make North Carolina the 30th state to adopt permitless carry, letting law-abiding citizens 18 and up carry concealed firearms without bureaucratic red tape. Even with SB 50, 18–20-year-olds still can’t purchase handguns or pistol caliber ammo under federal and state law, keeping those restrictions intact. Pointing to a tragic shooting in Catawba County on June 1, 2025, Butler claimed permitless carry laws fuel gun violence, saying, “I don’t understand why in the world we would do this.” Sorry, Rep. Butler, but your argument misses the mark by a country mile. The Catawba County incident shows criminals, not law-abiding citizens, are the problem, and the data on permitless carry states proves there’s no consistent link to increased gun violence. Let’s set the record straight.

Catawba County: Criminals Don’t Follow Laws

The Catawba County shooting on June 1, 2025, was a heartbreaking act of violence at a house party, leaving one dead and 11 injured. Sheriff’s officials are still investigating, with no arrests reported, and the motive unclear. But let’s be crystal clear: this wasn’t involve law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights. This was a criminal act, likely by folks already banned from owning or carrying guns under federal law. Criminals don’t care about permits, background checks, or murder laws—they break ‘em all. North Carolina currently requires permits for concealed carry, and this tragedy still happened, proving permits don’t stop them. Senate Bill 50 would empower law-abiding citizens, not the lawbreakers behind this shooting. Blaming permitless carry for what criminals do, as Butler tried to do in that committee room, is like blaming a hunter’s rifle for a poacher’s crime—it’s nonsense that punishes the law-abiding.

Permitless Carry Doesn’t Mean More Gun Violence

Butler’s claim that permitless carry states see more gun violence leans on cherry-picked studies that don’t tell the whole story. A 2017 West Virginia University study pointed to a 24% jump in gun homicides after West Virginia’s permitless carry law, and a 2022 Johns Hopkins study, funded by Bloomberg, claimed a 24% rise in firearm assaults in states that loosened concealed carry laws, especially when those states let folks with violent misdemeanor records carry. The Center for American Progress tossed out a 22% increase in gun homicides post-permitless carry. Sounds alarming, but hold up—these studies don’t prove what Butler wants you to think.

For one, they often get tangled up in other factors. West Virginia’s homicide spike? Look at the opioid crisis ripping through the state, not just permitless carry. National crime jumped after 2020, permitless or not, then started falling. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, folks. Dig into the broader data, and a 2022 study by Adams and Kim, covering all 50 states from 1980 to 2018, found no statistically significant increase in homicides or firearm suicides in permitless carry states, even hinting at a 6% homicide drop (though not ironclad). The Firearms Research Center at the University of Wyoming showed 10 of 16 early-adopter permitless carry states had lower violent crime rates after their laws passed—Arizona’s fell from 512.89 to 431.5 per 100,000, Wyoming’s from 243.11 to 219.22. Ohio’s 2024 data showed gun crimes dropped in six of eight major cities after going permitless in 2022.

Vermont, with permitless carry since its founding, boasts some of the lowest violent crime rates in the nation, while strict-law states like Illinois struggle with Chicago’s gun violence. Social media’s abuzz with both sides—some push studies like Johns Hopkins’, others note homicide rates don’t track with permitless carry, as high-crime states have all kinds of carry laws. Sheriff Tom Howard in Ohio County, West Virginia, said their 2016 law didn’t change crime rates much, especially in areas where folks already carry. The data’s clear: permitless carry doesn’t automatically mean more gun violence.

Why Butler’s Argument Misses the Bullseye

Butler’s fearmongering, which I heard loud and clear at the committee meeting, falls apart under scrutiny. Senate Bill 50 doesn’t touch federal background checks—felons, the mentally unfit, and other prohibited folks still can’t buy or carry guns legally. Studies like Johns Hopkins’, funded by Bloomberg, often mix permitless carry with broader “shall-issue” laws or focus on specific issues, like letting violent misdemeanants carry, which isn’t standard in most permitless carry laws. Crime trends? They’re driven by bigger forces—poverty, gangs, weak mental health systems—not whether law-abiding citizens need a permit to carry their sidearm.

The Catawba County shooting proves the point: criminals don’t care about permits or laws. It happened under North Carolina’s current permit system, showing that bureaucracy doesn’t stop bad guys. Senate Bill 50 would give law-abiding citizens the freedom to protect themselves without begging the government for a permission slip. Taking away our rights because of what criminals do is like padlocking your gun safe after a burglar’s armed robbery—and the crook’s still on the loose.

The Bottom Line

Rep. Butler’s using the Catawba County tragedy to push an anti-gun narrative, but as someone who sat through her speech in that committee room, I can tell you she’s aiming at the wrong target. The shooting was the work of criminals who ignore all laws, not law-abiding citizens who’d benefit from Senate Bill 50. The evidence from 29 permitless carry states shows no consistent spike in gun violence—many even see crime drop. The Second Amendment is about empowering folks like us to protect our families, not chasing anti-gun pipe dreams. Next time you hear Butler’s kind of fearmongering, point ‘em to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer or CDC’s WONDER database and tell ‘em to focus on locking up criminals, not our rights. Stay vigilant, and let’s keep North Carolina free.