Advocates and lawyers were trying to understand the impact of a state Superme Court decision, which found that a Garner man, who was convicted of a long-ago felony, had a right to own a gun.
The opinion applied only to Barney Britt, who was convicted of a drug crime in 1979, and it didn't have an immediate effect on the thousands of other felons in the state.
Criminal defense lawyers who practice in federal courts said they don't know what effect, if any, the opinion will have on federal rules, which prevent felons from buying and owning weapons except when a state has restored that right.
The ruling authored by Justice Edward Thomas Brady held that Britt should be able to own guns and that the state unfairly took away his right to own a firearm with a 2004 law that barred felons from owning firearms. Britt was convicted in 1979 of selling Quaalude pills, but he didn't have any further tangles with the law.
Though the opinion focused just on Britt's case, both sides of the gun control issue saw the ruling as significant because the state's highest court found that Britt had a right to bear arms that trumped the state's ability to restrict him from owning any weapons. (N&O)
* The 16-campus UNC system expects to eliminate about 900 administrative positions this year, an acknowledgement by university leaders of job growth gone wild.
Those 900 positions and other administrative costs could account for 75 percent or more of cuts that public university campuses will be asked to make this year as the system pares $171 million from its budget, UNC system officials say.
In cutting so heavily into administrative costs, UNC system President Erskine Bowles and others say they hope to protect academics. (N&O)
* All the clamor over health-care reform doesn't seem to bother freshman U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell.
"I remind people I taught high school," he said last week. "Loud and unruly people we call the fourth period."
But the Montgomery County Democrat is toeing a careful line on health care, balancing his own caution against the interests of his party and district just as he has on other issues during his first eight months in office. (Char-O)
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