State Sen. R.C. Soles' famous shot at would-be intruders has offended a gun-rights group.

Soles gets a pretty low rating for his votes on gun issues in the state senate, according to Grass Roots North Carolina, which rates politicians on their pro-gun stance. The rating drew the ire of the National Association for Gun Rights, which slammed Soles on its blog.

Senator Soles is the worst kind of hypocrite. He’s perfectly willing to use a gun to defend himself and his loved ones, but has spent his political career trying to prevent law-abiding citizens in North Carolina from defending themselves with a firearm.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore's latest TV ad attacks rival Beverly Perdue over a gun bill she worked on in the legislature, Ben Niolet reports.

What the ad says: Moore: "I'm Richard Moore, candidate for governor and I sponsored this ad." Announcer: "Decisions say a lot about character. Like the time Bev Perdue fought against a law to keep guns out of our schools. Newspapers said she was lending the gun lobby a hand, choosing the gun industry over our kids. And then there’s Perdue's vote to restrict a woman's right to choose. The Charlotte Observer said she let politics, not principle govern her performance. Is Bev Perdue a Democrat we can trust?"

The background: In 1993, the legislature was considering a bill to toughen penalties for bringing a gun to school. A House version of the bill made it a crime for a parent to not have a gun locked up. The National Rifle Association supported toughening the penalties for bringing a gun to school, but opposed requiring gun owners to keep firearms locked.

Perdue, then a state senator, consulted with NRA lobbyists and offered an amendment to the Senate’s version of the bill to replace the locked storage requirement with a provision that made it a crime for gun owners to have "reckless possession of firearms."

Supporters of the original bill said the new provision was toothless and the locked storage requriement would save lives. The law that ultimately passed made it a crime for a gun owner to allow a child to get hold of a gun and to use it unlawfully. Perdue voted for the law.

Editorials in The News & Observer, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Record of Greensboro supported the locked storage provision and criticized Perdue’s amendment.

The ad's claim about a vote to restrict a woman's right to choose refers to the state's fiscal 1996 budget. Perdue was one of the Senate's chief budget writers that year and the $9.5 billion spending plan cut by 96 percent a state fund that paid for abortions for poor women. Perdue voted for the budget.

At the time, North Carolina was the only Southern state to fund abortions for poor women, taking over that responsibility after Congress ended abortion funding for Medicaid recipients. Republicans took control of the N.C. House in 1995 and vowed to end tax-financed abortions.

A Charlotte Observer editorial criticized Perdue for the vote, saying it was not in keeping with her long record of supporting abortion rights. In the race for governor, Perdue has been endorsed by pro-choice organizations such as EMILY'S List, the National Women's Political Caucus, NOW and the Women's Campaign Forum.

Is the ad accurate? Not entirely.

Perdue voted for a bill that toughened penalties for bringing guns to schools. She introduced an amendment in the Senate that weakened the bill, but it’s a stretch to say she "fought against a law to keep guns out of our schools."

The 1996 state budget cut state-funded abortions in North Carolina by 96 percent and made it tougher for poor women to have an abortion. But the ad's claim could be interpreted by some viewers to mean that Perdue does not support abortion rights when she has the support of pro-choice organizations.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore latest ad attacks rival Beverly Perdue over a gun bill.