North Carolina Supreme Court Weighs Second Amendment Challenge to State's Felony Firearms Act
In State v. Ducker, the state's highest court is considering whether North Carolina's lifetime gun ban for people with felony records can be applied to someone whose underlying conviction was nonviolent.
A Gun-Rights Group and the ACLU Are on the Same Side. A Democratic Governor Is Against Them.
Start with the lineup, because it tells you something is off before you even get to the law. Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, both Democrats, are asking North Carolina's Supreme Court to uphold a lifetime gun ban for people with felony records[5][6]. Standing with them are the state's district attorneys, sheriffs, and police chiefs[2][6].
On the other side sit three groups that almost never agree on anything: the ACLU of North Carolina, the libertarian Cato Institute, and the gun-rights group Grass Roots North Carolina[3][4][16]. All three are asking the court to strike the ban down, or at least narrow it, for one man.
That man is Eric Ducker. The case, State v. Ducker, turns on whether the Constitution lets a state take away someone's gun rights forever over a felony that had nothing to do with violence[3][7]. The court has not yet ruled.
A Traffic Stop in 2009, a Guilty Verdict in 2023
Here's the fact pattern everyone agrees on. In 2009, Ducker was convicted of attempted fleeing to elude arrest — a driving offense, not a violent crime[1][7]. Under North Carolina's Felony Firearms Act, that felony conviction meant he could never legally own a gun again[3][7].
In August 2023, a Buncombe County jury convicted him of possessing a firearm anyway[9]. That conviction is itself a felony, and it's the one now before the state Supreme Court[7][9].
The picture isn't quite as clean as "one traffic ticket, one gun." Carolina Journal reports Ducker was also convicted in 2018 of misdemeanor violation of a domestic violence protective order, and some accounts describe more than one such violation[1][9]. Right-leaning outlets covering the case tend to center the driving offense and give little space to that record[11]. The state's supporters point to it as reason to doubt the "harmless nonviolent offender" framing[1][9].
Why a 2022 Supreme Court Ruling Is Doing All the Work
None of this reaches the state's high court on its own. It gets there because of a legal test the U.S. Supreme Court created in 2022, in a case called Bruen. Before Bruen, judges evaluating a gun law would weigh how much it restricted gun owners against how much it protected public safety. Bruen threw that balancing test out.
Now a gun law survives only if the government can show it fits within a tradition of similar regulation going back to the founding era. That's why North Carolina's crime statistics, however strong, aren't automatically a winning legal argument. Under Bruen, "this law prevents shootings" isn't by itself a constitutional defense.
It's also why Ducker's lawyers spend their brief on 18th-century history instead of modern data. They argue there's no founding-era tradition of permanently disarming someone for a nonviolent traffic offense committed 17 years earlier[9].
A 2024 case, Rahimi, complicated things further. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld disarming a man under a domestic violence restraining order, reasoning that the law only needed to be "relevantly similar" to a historical one, not an exact match[3][4]. Both sides in Ducker's case now claim Rahimi supports them. The state reads it as blessing broad legislative judgments about categories of risky people. Ducker reads it as requiring proof that this specific person is dangerous[3][4].
One Man's Case, or a Path for Thousands
Ducker's lawyers aren't just arguing his conviction should be erased. They're making two separate claims: that the whole statute is unconstitutional, and that it can't constitutionally apply to him specifically[7][9]. The second claim is the narrower one, and the easier one to win.
Their brief puts a number on what's at stake: they estimate felony records reach "nearly one-tenth of the adult population," and they doubt the founding generation would have accepted disarming that many people for life[9]. That figure comes from Ducker's own brief, not a state count.
The ACLU makes a similar point with a different number. Its brief says violent crimes make up just 16.4% of felony charges statewide[3]. Read plainly, that means roughly five out of every six felony charges in North Carolina involve nonviolent conduct — drug offenses, thefts, forgeries — yet the same lifetime gun ban falls on all of them. That figure comes from an advocacy brief, not an independently audited state dataset.
The state's answer is structural, not just factual. A blanket rule is simple to enforce. Individualized review means every felon-in-possession case turns into a hearing on that person's character, and prosecutors and sheriffs say they don't have the staff for that[2][6]. The Court of Appeals sided with the state in May 2025, ruling that people with felony convictions fall outside Second Amendment protection as a category, with no case-by-case review required[3][12].
The Legal Off-Ramp That's Nearly Impossible to Use
The state's strongest talking point is that North Carolina already has a way to give gun rights back. It's true — up to a point. A separate law, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.4, lets someone petition a court to restore their firearm rights[8][17].
But the conditions are tight. It only covers a single nonviolent felony, and only after a 20-year wait[8][17]. Someone with two old nonviolent convictions never qualifies, no matter how much time passes. Someone convicted at 25 generally can't even file until their late 40s.
So both sides are telling the truth about the same statute. The safety valve is real, and for most people the challengers are talking about, it's closed. Grass Roots North Carolina, the gun-rights group backing Ducker, makes exactly this argument — that the restoration path is close to a dead letter[8][16].
Underneath the legal fight sits a plainer one about who bears the cost of getting it wrong. Democratic officials defending the ban are protecting a tool prosecutors use to get repeat offenders off the street before, not after, a shooting[1][6]. The ACLU is fighting a pattern it sees across the justice system: punishments that outlast the sentence, whether it's losing the right to vote, serve on a jury, or own a gun[3]. Cato and Grass Roots North Carolina want courts held to the same historical test regardless of whether the result pleases law enforcement[4][16]. None of those interests line up with the national gun debate, which helps explain why almost no national outlet, left or right, has covered this case at all.
A Story With No National Playbook
The coverage that does exist splits in a telling way. Carolina Journal, published by the conservative John Locke Foundation, has run at least four separate stories tracking the case brief by brief, generally framing Stein as the one restricting rights[1][9][10][16]. Bearing Arms, an openly pro-gun outlet, goes further, casting the story as a Democratic governor personally trying to keep a permanent ban on a man whose only felony was fleeing police in a car[11].
There's essentially no coverage from national left-leaning outlets. The closest thing to a progressive framing is the ACLU's own case page, which treats the statute as a criminal-justice and racial-equity problem rather than a gun-rights one — and which does not mention Ducker's domestic violence protective order record[3]. Local and legal-trade coverage, like Spectrum News and Law360, stays more neutral but also skips over the Bruen mechanism entirely, leaving readers unable to judge why the state's public-safety data doesn't automatically settle the legal question[2][13].
The North Carolina Supreme Court had not ruled as of July 26, 2026[2]. Whichever way it goes, the decision will land on district attorneys and sheriffs first — they're the ones who'll have to apply whatever rule the court sets, case by case or all at once.
Summary
The North Carolina Supreme Court is deciding a case that could change who in the state can legally own a gun after a felony conviction. The case is State v. Ducker. Eric James Ducker was convicted by a Buncombe County jury in August 2023 of possessing a firearm as a felon[1][9]. His earlier felony, from 2009, was attempted fleeing to elude arrest — a traffic offense[1][7]. He argues that North Carolina's Felony Firearms Act cannot constitutionally be applied to him, because that older crime was not violent[7].
The alignment of sides is unusual. Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, both Democrats, are defending the ban[5][6]. Groups representing North Carolina district attorneys, sheriffs, police chiefs and police executives are defending it too[2][6]. On the other side, three groups that rarely agree have all backed Ducker: the ACLU of North Carolina, the libertarian Cato Institute, and the gun-rights group Grass Roots North Carolina[3][4][16].
The core dispute is not really about guns in the abstract. It is about whether courts must look at one person at a time. Ducker's side says the Second Amendment requires an individual assessment of whether a specific person is dangerous[3]. The state says the legislature may draw a general line at felony convictions, and that North Carolina already offers a separate legal path for some people to get their gun rights back[1][8]. The Court of Appeals sided with the state in May 2025, ruling that people with felony convictions fall outside Second Amendment protection as a category, with no case-by-case review[3][12].
The stakes go well past one man. If the court requires individualized review, thousands of North Carolinians with old nonviolent convictions could file challenges. If it upholds the categorical rule, the state's lifetime ban stands as written. The court had not issued a decision as of July 26, 2026[2].
The Event
North Carolina's Supreme Court is considering State v. Ducker, an appeal from a Buncombe County conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon[1][9]. A unanimous North Carolina Court of Appeals panel rejected Ducker's constitutional challenge in May 2025, and he appealed to the state's highest court[3][12]. On July 14, 2026, Governor Josh Stein filed a motion and friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to uphold the law[5]. Attorney General Jeff Jackson, along with statewide district attorney, sheriff, police chief and police executive organizations, is also defending the statute, while the ACLU of North Carolina, the Cato Institute and Grass Roots North Carolina have filed briefs supporting Ducker[3][4][6][16].
Undisputed Facts
- The statute at issue is North Carolina's Felony Firearms Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.1, which bars anyone with a felony conviction from possessing a firearm[3][7].
- Ducker's predicate felony — the earlier conviction that triggered the ban — was a 2009 conviction for attempted fleeing to elude arrest[1][9].
- A Buncombe County jury found Ducker guilty of possession of a firearm by a felon in August 2023[9].
- Carolina Journal reports Ducker was also convicted in 2018 of a misdemeanor violation of a domestic violence protective order; some accounts of his record describe more than one such violation[1][9].
- A unanimous North Carolina Court of Appeals panel ruled against Ducker in May 2025 and did not conduct an individualized analysis of his dangerousness[3][12].
- Ducker raised both a facial challenge (that the statute is unconstitutional for everyone) and an as-applied challenge (that it cannot constitutionally be applied to him specifically); the Court of Appeals rejected both, and both remain before the state Supreme Court[7][9].
- North Carolina has a separate statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.4, that lets some people petition a district court to restore firearm rights[8][17].
- The ACLU of North Carolina, the Cato Institute and Grass Roots North Carolina filed briefs supporting Ducker; Gov. Stein, AG Jackson and statewide law enforcement organizations filed briefs supporting the law[3][4][5][6][16].
The Pressure
Strip away the moralizing and blame. What structural realities persist regardless of which narrative wins?
- The Bruen test moved the goalposts
- This is the mechanism the case runs on, and most coverage skips it. Before 2022, a court judging a gun law weighed how much it burdened gun owners against how much it helped public safety. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision ended that balancing. Now the government must show its law fits within the historical tradition of gun regulation in America around the founding era. That is why the state's crime statistics, however strong, do not automatically win: under Bruen, 'this law saves lives' is not by itself a legal defense. And it is why the challengers spend their brief on 18th-century history rather than on modern data. The Court's 2024 Rahimi decision softened this somewhat — it upheld disarming a man under a domestic violence restraining order and said a modern law need only be 'relevantly similar' to a historical one, not an exact twin[3][4]. Both sides now claim Rahimi. The state reads it as blessing legislative judgments about dangerous classes of people. Ducker reads it as requiring a finding that this person is dangerous[3][4].
- As-applied versus facial is the real fight
- A facial challenge says a law is invalid for everyone. An as-applied challenge says the law is fine in general but cannot constitutionally be used against this one person. Ducker raised both at the Court of Appeals, and both remain live at the Supreme Court, but the as-applied theory is the narrower and more winnable one[7][9]. A win on that theory alone would let the justices rule for him without striking down the Felony Firearms Act, which is why the case is winnable even if the facial claim fails. But it is also exactly what worries prosecutors: an as-applied win creates no clean line, so every defendant with an old nonviolent conviction can file the same motion, and trial courts must hold individual hearings on who is dangerous[2][6].
- The restoration statute is narrower than either side lets on
- The state's strongest talking point is that a path to restore gun rights already exists. It does. But § 14-415.4 has hard limits. It applies only to a person convicted of a single nonviolent felony whose citizenship rights have been restored, and only after at least 20 years have passed[8][17]. In practice, someone with two old nonviolent felonies never qualifies, no matter how long ago. And a person convicted at 25 who finished their sentence at 27 generally cannot even file the petition until their late 40s. So both descriptions are true at once: the safety valve is real, and it is closed to most people the challengers are talking about.
- The coalition crosses party lines because the underlying interests are not partisan
- Democratic officeholders defending the statute are protecting a prosecutorial tool and a public-safety record. Libertarians attacking it are protecting a constitutional methodology. Civil-liberties lawyers attacking it are targeting permanent post-sentence penalties. None of those interests track the national gun debate, which is why the usual national outlets on both left and right largely did not cover this story[3][4][5][6].
Material realityOne man's criminal conviction is on the line, and behind him a large but uncounted number of North Carolinians with old felony records. Nobody in this case has produced a verified state count of how many people the ban currently covers. The ACLU and Cato brief says violent crimes make up 16.4% of felony charges statewide, and Ducker's brief estimates felony records reach nearly one-tenth of the adult population — but both figures come from advocacy filings, not from a state audit or dataset[3][9]. What is verifiable is structural: the Felony Firearms Act is enforced as a bright-line rule, the restoration statute requires a single nonviolent felony and a 20-year wait, and the Court of Appeals applied the categorical rule with no individualized review[3][7][8][12]. Whichever way the court rules, the enforcement burden lands on district attorneys and sheriffs, which is why those organizations — not gun manufacturers or national advocacy groups — are the ones lined up behind the state[2][6].
How Each Side Sees It
Each major actor’s view — how it frames things, its underlying incentive, and how it’s materially affected. Tap a side to read it.
Frames it asTheir argument starts with what the Second Amendment protected when it was written. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, a gun law survives only if the government can point to a similar tradition of regulation in early American history. Ducker's lawyers say no such tradition supports permanently disarming a person for a nonviolent traffic offense committed 17 years ago. They put the scale of the rule bluntly in their brief: they doubt 'our Nation at the Founding would have accepted a categorical lifetime disarmament of nearly one-tenth of the adult population as concordant with the preexisting natural right to keep and bear arms'[9]. That figure — roughly 1 in 10 American adults with a felony record — is the defense's own estimate, not a state count, and it is meant to show the ban is not a narrow exception but a mass exclusion. Their second argument is about method. They say the question is whether a legislature may use 'the mere existence of almost any prior felony conviction, no matter how old, non-violent, and unrelated to firearms' to erase a core constitutional right entirely[2]. Rights, they argue, are not forfeited by category. They are forfeited by conduct, and a court has to look at the conduct[3].
WhyDucker has pressed both a facial challenge to the whole statute and a narrower as-applied claim that it cannot reach him specifically[7][9]. Winning on the as-applied theory alone is easier than winning the facial one, and it gives the justices an off-ramp that does not require striking the law for everyone with a record.
Impact on themA conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon is itself a felony in North Carolina. A win erases that conviction. A loss leaves it standing and leaves him permanently disarmed under state law unless he later qualifies under the restoration statute[8].
Frames it asTheir first argument is empirical and blunt. The state's brief says the Felony Firearms Act 'reflects the commonsense view that those convicted of serious and often violent crimes are more likely than law-abiding individuals to misuse firearms, endangering law enforcement and the public'[1]. The law, they write, 'seeks to deter gun violence while providing a critical tool for punishing recidivist offenders'[1]. That second half matters more than it sounds. Felon-in-possession charges are one of the main ways prosecutors take an armed repeat offender off the street before a shooting happens, rather than after. Their second argument is that the challengers are attacking a safety valve that already exists. North Carolina does not actually impose a no-exceptions lifetime ban: § 14-415.4 lets a person with a single nonviolent felony petition a district court to get gun rights back[1][8]. So, they argue, the legislature has already done the sorting Ducker wants judges to do — through a process with a hearing, a record and a judge, instead of scattered constitutional rulings. Their third argument is institutional. A bright-line rule is administrable. Case-by-case dangerousness review turns every felon-in-possession prosecution into a mini-trial about a defendant's character, which sheriffs and district attorneys say they cannot staff[2][6]. Stein's office also frames this as being about 'keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of people who have committed violent crimes'[5] — and points to the domestic violence protective order violations in Ducker's own record as evidence that the 'nonviolent offender' label can be misleading[1][9].
WhyStein and Jackson are Democrats who campaigned on public safety and have a political interest in not being the officials who opened a gun-rights hole in state law. Prosecutors and sheriffs have a workload and enforcement interest: the felon-in-possession charge is a high-volume, easy-to-prove tool, and individualized review would make it expensive to use[2][6].
Impact on themIf the court requires individualized review, the state must litigate dangerousness in a large number of pending and past cases. That is a direct cost to district attorney offices. A ruling for the state preserves the current enforcement model unchanged[2][6].
Frames it asThe ACLU's case is not primarily a gun-rights case. It is a case about permanent punishment. Its brief argues that § 14-415.1 disarms people 'solely because they have any felony conviction, without asking whether the crime was violent or how much time has passed'[3]. It leans on a specific number: violent crimes make up 16.4% of all felony charges statewide[3]. Read plainly, that means roughly five out of every six felony charges in North Carolina are for nonviolent conduct — drug offenses, thefts, forgeries. The same lifetime ban falls on all of them as on a first-degree murder conviction[3]. The ACLU also argues the burden is not spread evenly, saying the law 'falls particularly hard on rural and Black North Carolinians,' who are more likely to carry felony records[3]. Its legal ask is modest in form: hold that the statute cannot constitutionally apply to people who pose no danger, and send the case back for individualized review[3]. Readers should note the 16.4% figure comes from an advocacy brief and counts charges, not convictions — it has not been verified here against a state dataset.
WhyThe ACLU's long-running project is dismantling what it calls the collateral consequences of conviction — the rights and opportunities lost permanently after a sentence ends. Voting, jury service and firearms all sit in that category. A win here builds precedent for individualized review of other lifetime bars[3].
Impact on themBacking a Second Amendment claim carries reputational cost with parts of the ACLU's donor base, and the gun press has noticed — The Reload headlined its coverage 'The ACLU Goes Pro-Gun'[15]. The organization is spending political capital to establish a principle it wants applied well beyond guns.
Frames it asCato, a libertarian think tank funded largely by individual and foundation donors on the free-market right, argues the case as a straight originalist question. Its brief asks the court to apply the post-Bruen framework in a way that allows 'individualized, history-based review instead of a one-size-fits-all prohibition'[4][10]. The key move is a reading of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 Rahimi decision. In Rahimi, the Court upheld disarming a man under a domestic violence restraining order — but reasoned that the historical tradition supports disarming people found to be dangerous. Cato and the ACLU, writing jointly, say that logic cuts both ways: 'these precedents require trial courts to evaluate, on a case-by-case basis, whether and to what extent individuals like Eric Ducker can be barred from firearm possession based on a prior felony conviction'[3]. Grass Roots North Carolina, a state gun-rights group, adds the practical point that the restoration statute is close to a dead letter for most people — it covers only those with a single nonviolent felony, and only after a 20-year wait[8][16].
WhyCato wants the historical-tradition test applied consistently, including where it produces results that displease law enforcement. Grass Roots North Carolina wants the number of North Carolinians barred from gun ownership reduced. Both benefit from a ruling that makes state courts do original-meaning analysis rather than defer to legislatures[4][16].
Impact on themA favorable ruling would make North Carolina one of the states requiring individualized review, giving both groups a model to export to other state supreme courts. A loss leaves the categorical rule intact in a large southern state[4].
Like this article?
The Bias Ledger average rating 4.4
The same story, as framed by outlets across the spectrum, ordered least to most biased. The bias score (1 = straight, 10 = heavily spun) is an AI assessment of that framing — click an outlet to see its track record. The tell is the word choice or omission that reveals the angle.
| Outlet | Vantage | Bias | How they frame it | The tell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectrum News | U.S. center, local broadcast | 2 | 'Debate over felony firearm ban reaches N.C. Supreme Court' | Neutral procedural framing — 'debate,' 'reaches.' Lists amici on both sides without ranking them. The main gap is depth: it does not explain the Bruen historical-tradition test, which is the mechanism the whole case turns on, so a reader cannot judge why the state's public-safety data may not be legally decisive. |
| Law360 | U.S. legal trade press, subscription, institutional-law readership | 2 | 'Prosecutors Urge NC High Court To Uphold Felon Gun Ban' | Headlines the institutional actor rather than the individual. Trade coverage aimed at practitioners tends to treat the state's position as the baseline and the challenge as the deviation — a framing effect of the audience, not of stated politics. Most content sits behind a paywall. |
| Carolina Journal | U.S. right (published by the conservative John Locke Foundation) | 3 | 'Stein urges top NC court to uphold law against felons owning guns' and 'Defendant challenges state's arguments for NC felon gun ban' | The most detailed running coverage anywhere, and it quotes both sides' briefs at length. The slant shows in volume and sequencing rather than adjectives: each pro-Ducker brief gets its own story, and headlines put Stein in the active voice as the one restricting rights. It does report the domestic violence protective order conviction, which several friendlier outlets omit. |
| The Reload | U.S., gun-policy-focused subscription outlet founded by a reporter sympathetic to gun rights | 4 | 'Members' Newsletter: The ACLU Goes Pro-Gun' | The angle is the coalition, not the defendant. Casting the ACLU as 'pro-gun' scores a point in a national culture-war argument, and flattens the ACLU's actual position, which is about individualized review of lifetime penalties rather than about expanding gun access. |
| Hoodline | U.S., automated/AI-assisted local news aggregator | 5 | 'ACLU, Cato And Gun Group Unite To Blast North Carolina Felon Gun Ban' | 'Blast' and 'unite' are conflict verbs applied to routine amicus filings. Aggregated from other outlets' work with no original reporting, so it inherits and amplifies whichever source it summarized. |
| ACLU of North Carolina | U.S. left-leaning civil liberties advocacy organization; party to the case as amicus | 7 | Case page describing a statute that strips rights 'regardless of how minor or nonviolent the underlying offense was, how long ago it happened, or whether the person poses any danger' | This is a litigant's own account, not journalism. It supplies the 16.4% violent-felony-charge figure and the racial-disparity claim, which most news coverage repeats without independent checking. It omits Ducker's domestic violence protective order record entirely — the single fact most damaging to the 'nonviolent offender' framing. |
| Bearing Arms | U.S. right, gun-rights advocacy site | 8 | 'North Carolina Governor Wants State Supreme Court to Uphold Gun Ban for Felons' | Frames the story as a named Democratic politician personally wanting to take rights away, rather than as a state defending an existing statute. Written as commentary under a bylined columnist. The state's recidivism and enforcement arguments appear mainly to be rebutted. |
References
- Stein urges top NC court to uphold law against felons owning guns — Carolina Journal · U.S. right; news arm of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative/free-market North Carolina think tank
- Debate over felony firearm ban reaches N.C. Supreme Court — Spectrum News · U.S. center; local cable news owned by Charter Communications
- State of North Carolina v. Ducker (amicus) — ACLU of North Carolina · U.S. left-leaning civil liberties advocacy organization; amicus party in the case, donor-funded
- State v. Ducker Brief: Defending the Second Amendment Rights of North Carolinians — Cato Institute · Libertarian think tank funded by individual and foundation donors on the free-market right; amicus party in the case
- Governor Stein Urges NC Supreme Court to Protect North Carolinians — Office of the Governor of North Carolina · Primary source; official press release from a Democratic state executive who is a party-in-interest
- Attorney General Jeff Jackson, North Carolina Law Enforcement Leaders Defend North Carolina's Public Safety Laws — North Carolina Department of Justice · Primary source; official release from the state agency litigating the case, led by a Democratic attorney general
- State v. Ducker (2025), North Carolina Court of Appeals — FindLaw · Primary court record republished by a commercial legal database owned by Thomson Reuters
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.4 — Restoration of firearms rights — North Carolina General Assembly · Primary source; official text of state law
- Defendant challenges state's arguments for NC felon gun ban — Carolina Journal · U.S. right; news arm of the John Locke Foundation
- ACLU, Cato join forces to support defendant's 2A case at top NC court — Carolina Journal · U.S. right; news arm of the John Locke Foundation
- North Carolina Governor Wants State Supreme Court to Uphold Gun Ban for Felons — Bearing Arms · U.S. right; gun-rights advocacy site owned by Salem Media Group, a conservative Christian media company
- COA Shuts Down Second Amendment Challenges to Firearm by Felon — North Carolina Criminal Law Blog · Academic legal analysis published by the UNC School of Government, a state-funded university unit that trains judges and prosecutors
- Prosecutors Urge NC High Court To Uphold Felon Gun Ban — Law360 · U.S. legal trade press, subscription-based, owned by LexisNexis
- ACLU, Cato And Gun Group Back NC Felon Gun Challenge — Hoodline · U.S.; AI-assisted local news aggregator with no original reporting staff on this story
- Members' Newsletter: The ACLU Goes Pro-Gun — The Reload · U.S.; subscriber-funded gun-policy outlet founded by reporter Stephen Gutowski, generally sympathetic to gun-rights arguments
- Gun rights group backs defendant in 2A case at NC Supreme Court — Carolina Journal · U.S. right; news arm of the John Locke Foundation
- Firearm Rights after Felony Conviction — UNC School of Government · State-funded university research unit; reference material for North Carolina courts and attorneys
- North Carolina Supreme Court case challenges state ban on firearm possession by felons — NC Political News · U.S.; small North Carolina political news aggregator that republishes press releases and other outlets' reporting