Bullet bill: later, says council

The so-called "Bullet Ownership Bill" will have to wait.

A Thursday meeting of the city council's legislative committee, at which the bill was due for discussion, was cancelled early Wednesday afternoon.

Councilman Mike Woodard, a committee member, said the meeting was called off because Mayor Bill Bell had a conflict and councilman Eugene Brown is out of town.

City Clerk D. Ann Gray said she had no idea when the meeting might be rescheduled.

The Rev. Melvin Whitley of Durham has been lobbying to have the bill introduced at the state General Assembly. Among its provisions are required permits for buying ammunition and outlawing ammunition purchase by convicted felons, drug addicts, the mentally ill or retarded as well as several other classes of citizens.

So far, he has not found any legislator willing to sponsor the bill.

Whitley made a presentation on his bill to a city council work session in December, at which the council agreed to consider putting it on Durham's legislative wish list for the upcoming session.

The bill is apparently target of an organized campaign of opposition. Form letters against it have dominated the email commentary sent to council members. Many of those, Woodard said, are signed simply "Concerned citizen."