June 19 was a great day for the residents of Durham County. That was the day Senate Bill 226 became law and struck down the requirement for people living in Durham County to register their firearms with the Clerk of Court.
I’m not quite sure what prompted the legislation back in 1935, but striking down chapter 157 is the smartest thing anyone has done in our state in a very long time. If you are interested in the verbiage from back in the day you can view the OCR scan and ignore the misspelled words the computer could not quite get right and understand something bad was going on in Durham at the time. I’m guessing crime had risen due to Prohibition and residents were growing weary of it so they asked their representative to do something and they came up with a gun registration so they could prosecute those who committed crimes with a firearm which was not registered. Of course this is pure conjecture on my part, but why enact a registration on a single county?
I found the old law from 1935 which was just struck down, it makes for some interesting reading. Enjoy!
Public-local laws passed by the General Assembly ; Private laws passed by the General Assembly [1935]
Pages: 188, 189, 190
Bangers and Mash 