Where Is Open Carry In South Carolina Legislative Priorities?
BY Herschel Smith6 years, 10 months ago
Four months isn’t enough time to get all the state’s business done.
When South Carolina lawmakers wrapped the 2017 legislative session in May, they had approved a plan to fix the state’s dilapidated roads, including a higher gas tax, and shored up the state’s pension system.
But some bills didn’t reach the finish line for one reason or another, so even before moving on to new business, the Legislature will have a lot to pick back up when they convene for the second half of the session in January.
Multiple bills affect South Carolinians’ ability to buy and carry firearms publicly. Last year, the S.C. House of Representatives approved two bills loosening the requirements for carrying a gun in the Palmetto State, only to see them get stuck in the state Senate.
One would allow anyone with an out-of-state gun permit to carry a concealed weapon in South Carolina as long as their state also recognizes S.C. carrying permits. The bill removes any requirement on the traveler to have passed a criminal background check or taken a firearm safety course. However, the traveler still must observe S.C. laws for carrying firearms while in the state.
The other bill would eliminate the need to have any permit to carry a weapon, either concealed or openly – a position proponents call “constitutional carry.”
Meanwhile, a Senate bill would do away with the so-called “Charleston loophole” by requiring a 28-day waiting period for a gun seller to complete a background check.
That loophole – a federal rule that allows a gun purchase to be completed if a background check takes longer than three days – allowed convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof to purchase a handgun because a prior drug conviction was not reported to the seller within the three-day wait period. Another bill would require courts to speed up the reporting of criminal convictions for background checks.
Both of those bills remained in committee when the 2017 session came to an end.
The debate around all these bills started before this autumn’s mass shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas, and it’s unclear what effect those might have on S.C. lawmakers’ appetite for more gun legislation.
It remains sitting there, S.C. gun owners. If the S.C. legislature doesn’t prioritize some form of open carry – with or without constitutional carry – it’s because they feel no pressure to prioritize it.
Events of recent months have given the progs a good excuse to delay this legislation. Of course. Not good in the sense that it has anything to do with open carry, but good in the sense that the optics are altered.
On December 18, 2017 at 9:48 am, Geoff said:
One can always move to Arizona. I may.
On December 18, 2017 at 12:38 pm, Geoff said:
Democrats keep finding ways to delay it, either in Committee or on the Floor.
Last time they put it on the back burner to do the Gas Tax.
Before that the RINO on the Judiciary Committee killed it. TWICE.
Now that Committee is controlled by Republicans, so it got to the House Floor.
Where it is now I don’t know.
I go shopping in North Carolina where I can Open Carry and nobody gives a S***. Not even the Police and Deputy Sheriffs in Walmart in Whiteville.
I live in Loris, SC, so that Walmart is only 6 more miles to drive than the one in Conway or North Myrtle Beach.
And the Sales Tax is lower.
On December 19, 2017 at 2:02 pm, George Lob said:
The bill cannot remove requirements for a traveler to pass a background check because that is up to the issuing state, not South Carolina and I don’t know of a single state that issues permits that does not do a background check.
On February 2, 2018 at 2:05 pm, John said:
I am sick and tired of the Demonic (Democrats) people trying to ruin America and restricting the American people from being free. If they can’t work with Americans to make America great then they should be held for treason!!! When the hell are people going to come together and get rid of these people?!