On March 31, the GOA and GNCC fired off a letter demanding that Schewel give in or face a lawsuit.
Regardless of the CISA memo, GOA senior vice president Erich Pratt and GRNC president F. Paul Valone wrote, the stay-at-home order should not apply to gun stores because they “provide ‘necessary supplies and services’ to enable persons to protect their and their families’ ‘health and safety,’ as your order provides. … Moreover, applying the Stay at Home Order to gun stores would violate state law and both the federal and state constitutions.”
Schewel was given two days to comply.
“Based on these statements [to the media], and your refusal to exempt Second Amendment businesses from your Stay at Home Order, GRNC and GOA are in the process of preparing litigation to challenge your action on several bases, including those outlined above,” Pratt and Valone wrote. “We are planning on filing suit very soon to enjoin you from continuing to order gun stores to be closed.
The Triangle has already seen gun litigation amid the pandemic. Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker was sued after he stopped processing pistol-permit applications. He quickly entered into a consent agreement and begin issuing them again…
On April 3, the city and Durham County issued a consolidated stay-at-home order designed to clarify and tighten their rules…
And on page 7, it says that businesses included in the March 28 CISA memo would be considered essential, which, of course, includes gun shops.
Grass Roots North Carolina’s Paul Valone—who, in 2016, raffled an AR-15, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and a framed portrait of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which is a totally normal thing to do—boasted to the North State Journal that Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughn had “immediately capitulated” and admitted she was “wrong” when his group sent her a similar letter.
“Our lawyers said we couldn’t win,” Schewel told the INDY on Tuesday. “And not only that they were gonna win, but that we were gonna have to pay their legal fees. And so that’s why we made the decision—which is, you know, awful. Gun stores are not essential. In fact, they are damaging. It’s terrible to be forced into this position.”
Read more at Indy Week