There is no law ( and if there is no one cares) that requires a permit to “look” at anything. Only one of about 30 or so shops I’ve been in asked to see a permit, Mackeys Landing.
Much ado bout nuthin’.
You must live in a different NC than I do. I’ve had a concealed handgun permit pretty much the whole time I’ve been here (12 years or so), and that particular requirement has thus never affected me personally, I have witnessed all the shops in the area stating customers need a CHP or a purchase permit before they can look at a handgun.
Now to be fair, I’m a regular in most shops in the area, they know me and they know I have a CHP and conceal carry and as such I have not been asked to produce a permit before looking at a handgun in at least a decade. You may fall in the same category, just not at Mackeys.
This is the clause in the NC law that makes it a requirement:
“Further, it is unlawful for any person to receive from any postmaster, postal clerk, employee in the parcel post department, rural mail carrier, express agent or employee, or railroad agent or employee, within the State of North Carolina, any pistol without having in his/her possession, such a pistol purchase permit or North Carolina concealed carry permit.”
In this case the “receive” is defined as and extends to an employee handing one to a customer to look at.
It’s a good idea to read the law. It applies to gifted and inherited firearms as well where a purchase permit is required to be retained or a CHP is required to be referenced on a bill of sale by the donor or executor of the estate.
http://https://ncdoj.gov/ncja/download/102/firearms/17352/north-carolina-firearms-laws.pdf
The background check for the purchase permit does nothing more than is accomplished by a NICS check except requiring a visit to the SOS office and a $5 fee per permit. Sheriff’s offices do check with the two state mental hospitals for involuntary commitments, but those commitments should already be reported to the federal data base.
In that regard it is a law well worth getting rid of - provided a NICS check is completed prior to any private sale or transfer.
The ATF has made that more of a pain with the recent iterations of their Form 4473 by moving the old section D up front, which effectively requires the FFL to log the firearm in, do the NICS check and then log it back out of the book. That makes it a lot more work and eliminates the potential to do it for a nominal fee.
I’d like to see a NICS check offered as a no cost or low cost service (no more than $5) by local PDs and SOs as part of any federal requirement for a NICS check on private sales and transfers. It should not cost people $25-$50 to transfer a firearm to a friend or relative.
