Durham Gun Registry Records Remain In Limbo | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dan Way, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

County, state can't decide whether to save or destroy registration info


    DURHAM     The Durham gun owner registry may have been repealed during the short session of the General Assembly, but gun advocates remain uneasy about the fate of the personal (and public) records of those who registered firearms.

Cindy Buchanan, Durham County assistant clerk of court/head cashier, thumbs through gun registration paperwork housed in her office.
CJ Photo by Dan Way
    One possible resting ground for the documents: the state Office of Archives and History at the Department of Cultural Resources. "We've been in discussion with the North Carolina Department of Archives about taking possession," said Archie Smith, clerk of court for Durham County Superior Court.

    "I think what they're looking at is simply archiving them as historical artifacts ... where we keep old, old, old records pertinent to North Carolina," Smith said.

    Kevin Cherry, director of the archives office, said in an email, "we are still working with the county to review the archival value of the Durham gun registry documents. When we do this kind of review, we have to ask questions like, 'What information is captured by the form? What questions might this information answer in the future? What is the extent of the holdings? What legal restrictions might there be? etc.'"

    Paul Valone, president of the nonprofit gun rights organization Grass Roots North Carolina, sees no good coming from any attempt to preserve the documents. "The fact is, these records need to be destroyed. They date from a Jim Crow[-era] law, they are keeping information on people which is no longer permissible under state law, and they need to go," Valone said. "They should be historical artifacts no more than people's private medical records should be historical artifacts."

    Smith has been unable to transfer custody of the files to Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews, and said Valone's call for destroying the tens of thousands of documents would not be a straightforward process.

    "They're not something that belongs to the state," he said, because the registry was created as the result of a "local bill" in the General Assembly applying only to Durham County.

    The records are "not mine to get rid of. They don't belong to me as an individual or me as the clerk. I've got no authority to do anything with them. The statute simply said that the requirement to keep them was no longer there," Smith said.

    "If I were to take and spray some Kingsford charcoal lighter fluid to them and light a match, the next thing you know, here would come somebody from the county saying those were county records, you weren't supposed to do that," he added.

    Durham County spokeswoman Dawn Dudley said neither the county manager nor county commissioners had a position on the repeal legislation or what to do with the controversial records. She said that was a matter for Smith and Sheriff Mike Andrews to decide.

    "The county commissioners ... didn't ask for this 80 years ago, they didn't ask for it now. They would love for it to just disappear, too," said state Sen. Mike Woodard, D-Durham, who sponsored the repeal bill.

    Woodard said there could be some historical value to keeping a handful of some records in the gun registry.

    "Just pick some from early eras, determine that the registrant is deceased, and let's put them on file so that historians could look at them, and take the rest out by the boxload and put them in an incinerator," Woodard said.

    "That's what I think we ought to do with them. I think that's what the sheriff thinks we ought to do with them," Woodard said.

    "I don't know that that requires legislation," Woodard said. "But if it takes legislation I'll be happy to follow through."

    In hindsight, Woodard said, he should have included language in the bill clearly stating "all records could be disposed of at the discretion of the sheriff of Durham County," but didn't think that necessary at the time. "I'm pretty sure that was the intent."

    Woodard said the history of the law creating the gun registration files "indicates to me they were a function of the sheriff in 1934 [or] '35, and the current sheriff is the owner of them, if you will, so he's the one who would say let's get rid of them."

    Smith said he understands why those who were compelled by the old law to register their guns — the only gun registry in North Carolina — would be concerned about opening their personal information to scrutiny by the public or by marketing firms that may use the information to target those on the registry.

    But he believes the records could have value for academic use by statisticians and researchers if information that identified the registrants individually could be removed.

    "These are such a unique set of records. Think about it, going back to the Depression there is no record anywhere else in the state that's been kept on a continuous basis as to registration of handguns," Smith said.

    Some "off-the-cuff" examples of their research value, he said, could be to determine if handgun registrations increased near the end of the era of racial segregation, the caliber of weapons that were commonly used or purchased and when, and the costs of weapons over time as related to general price inflation or availability.

    "There's just all kinds of interesting questions that the only barometer for that kind of information would be these old records," Smith said.

    Valone dismisses the notion that information on the gun registrations is unique. He said such data is readily available from other venues, including the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

    "It's bureaucrats justifying trying to retain data they're no longer supposed to have, trying to retain some of the power the state is no longer allowed to have, and it's unsurprising. It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which they will go to try to justify this stuff," Valone said.
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