Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a new fact sheet underscoring the role guns are playing in surging rates of violent crime in North Carolina. From 2011 to 2020, North Carolina saw a 35 percent increase in gun deaths and an 88 percent increase in gun homicides. From 2020 to 2021, incidents of violent crime in the state increased by 5.9 percent, nearly half of which were related to firearms and handguns.
Despite the alarming increase in violent crime, North Carolina’s Republican leaders have actively blocked gun safety bills, including a commonsense measure that would have raised the minimum age for possessing a shotgun such as the one used by a mass shooter in Raleigh in October.
It’s no surprise that North Carolina’s Republican Senate candidate, Rep. Ted Budd, refuses to take action—the National Rifle Association has spent more than $200,000 in support of his campaigns. For the past decade, Rep. Budd has owned ProShots—a gun store and shooting range in North Carolina—and made more than $4 million in income from it since being elected to Congress in 2016. He even boasted about a surge in sales in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Rep. Budd has repeatedly refused to vote for commonsense gun safety measures and, following the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, he opposed a bipartisan bill to improve background checks and expand gun safety rules that had the overwhelming support of law enforcement. Instead of trying to solve the gun violence crisis in his state, Rep. Budd has decided to profit from selling deadly weapons.
“Despite Democratic leaders’ best efforts to tirelessly push more than a dozen gun safety bills to keep North Carolina’s communities safe, Republicans have repeatedly blocked proven, bipartisan solutions to stem gun violence,” said Jerry Parshall, senior director of the Safety and Justice Campaign at CAP Action. “North Carolinians deserve to feel safe in their communities, but Ted Budd’s MAGA agenda has proved that he will choose his profit over the safety of North Carolinians.”
Read the fact sheet: “Fact Sheet: Dangerous Gun Laws in North Carolina”
For additional state fact sheets, see “Dangerous Guns Laws Increase Violent Crime: A State-By-State Analysis”
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected].