South Carolina House Judiciary Committee To Debate Open Carry Bill
BY Herschel Smith
3 years, 10 months ago
Update on South Carolina open carry.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Lawmakers in the South Carolina House Judiciary Committee are likely to consider allowing some gun owners to open-carry their weapons.
The Open Carry Training Act would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to carry a handgun out in the open.
Reaction to the proposed law is mixed.
“I understand good faith opposition to guns, I do, I get it, but the reality is this law is very narrowly tailored to address one specific concern and that is people who have CWPs if they are going to be criminalized for having that gun exposed,” Rep. Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, said.
Lowcountry pediatrician Dr. Anne Andrews cited 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stating firearms are the leading cause of death for children in South Carolina between the ages of 1 and 19, surpassing motor vehicle accidents.
“Guns that are going to be open carried are most likely going to be loaded, so that would certainly increases the chances the child or a teenager could access a loaded firearm so that would increase risk to those unintentional shootings we often see in young children,” she said.
Let’s stop there.
First of all, there is no “good faith” opposition to open carry or to guns. This is a God-given right. Self defense is a God-given right to which objections should be appealed to the sovereign of the universe, not men and women who want to defend home and hearth.
Next up, Lowcountry pediatrician Dr. Anne Andrews must be an idiot. ““Guns that are going to be open carried are most likely going to be loaded” has to be the most stolid statement I’ve ever heard in the context of weapons.
Is she implying that concealed firearms aren’t loaded? Or is she implying that since guns must be assumed to be loaded, a child is going to intentionally attempt to assault an open carrier who is carrying without a weapon retention holster? This is an equally ridiculous assertion, unless she’s referring to miscreant criminal teens, in which case they aren’t children. The reference to this person in the article reeks of having to fill in white space by the author. The objection has no place, makes no sense, and breaks the train of thought and flow of the report.
“One way to look at this bill is, what it does is say, if you’ve got a valid concealed weapon permit you won’t be penalized for this gun being exposed,” Caskey said. “So, if you got your coat caught behind your concealed weapon right now that would be a violation of state law. We are trying to decimalize that.”
Well that itself is a good enough reason to pass the bill, but let’s call this what it is. It’s an open carry bill, or in other words, it’s a bill to undo what the law currently says about openly carried firearms and pull South Carolina into agreement with what 46 other states know: openly carried weapons don’t cause blood to run in the streets. Open carry is legal in North Carolina, right across the border, and apparently no one has thought to investigate whether open carry in North Carolina causes blood to run in the streets.
Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, is concerned this bill would hurt minorities.
“For people who are not familiar with me, I’m just another minority walking the streets,” he said. “I do have concerns if I would be able to open carry the same as my white counterparts.”
Bamberg defines himself as a pro-Second Amendment gun owner. But he is concerned about sheriffs who have spoken out against the idea.
“Minorities all across South Carolina and the country are deemed suspicious when they are just doing everyday activities from running to even sitting in their house eating ice cream like Botham Jean,” Bamberg said.
Jean was a St. Lucia native who was shot and killed in his Dallas apartment by a Dallas Police officer who said she mistook him for a burglar in her home. Authorities say she entered Jean’s apartment by mistake instead of her own.
“Can our state handle that if we now arm everyone, even minorities?” Bamberg said. “I want to be able carry safely, I want people like me to carry safely, but I want to see changes in the bill to help make that happen.”
Bamberg said he does not think every citizen is comfortable with seeing guns openly carried being around them.
Well, Rep. Justin Bamberg has given us a disorganized, random pile of mess to unravel.
First, if a minority doesn’t wish to open carry, he doesn’t have to. This bill doesn’t require open carry. Second, I think he’s lying and he isn’t really a 2A supporter, at least, not if he’s opposed to open carry.
Third, I’m perfectly comfortable seeing open carry, and I’ve walked right by black guys who were openly carrying in my own state. But this isn’t about my comfort, nor his comfort, nor the comfort of anyone else. Rights are not contingent upon comfort. Many people are uncomfortable listening to street preachers. I’ve seen people on the sidewalks change to the other side of the road to avoid them, while I’m happy to walk up and talk to them.
We don’t discuss limits on the first amendment because people are uncomfortable with street preachers, nor should we. And I would hasten to repeat what I’ve pointed out before. “Anything that can be done with an openly carried firearm can be done with a concealed firearm. It’s an amazing thing that we actually have to cover this ground again, but the fact that someone cannot visually ascertain the presence of a firearm doesn’t mean it’s not there. Any confusion on this fact points to a second-grader level psychological problem.”
We don’t infringe on God-given rights because of psychological problems. Finally, there is this misdirect from Bamberg (whom we quoted earlier).
Bamberg said he is not happy about the timing, however.
“There are important issues right now that we could be effecting people right now that we could be handling, but I think we are marching to the beat of a push back agenda I believe is what it’s called,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the proper way to legislate.”
That’s simply a lie. This piece of legislation is before the committee. It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s clear, and it deserves a hearing before the entire legislature. If Bamberg wants to reign in law enforcement in the state of South Carolina, that’s a worthy goal. I’m with him on that one, whether LEOs who shoot first and investigate later, LEOs who shoot innocent victims through the doors of their own homes, and on the list could go.
But that all has absolutely nothing to do with this bill. It’s irrelevant, and the excuse that “we have more important things to work on” is exactly what jettisoned this bill every time it has been brought up, as if the judiciary committee is trying to protect the rest of the legislature from having to stake out a position and cast a vote on it. You see, killing the bill protects the closet gun controllers from self-identifying and answering for their position in the next election. They know that. They plan for it. Maybe the author of the article, Adam Mintzer, could investigate the real reasons for killing this bill so many times before in his next article. Perhaps it will be better than this one.
To the South Carolina legislature: it’s okay not to be like the four states who still live in the dark ages, and it’s okay not to be like the control freaks who live in New York. You can admit that you’re supposed to be a free state.
Pass this bill through committee. Let the legislature take a vote. Make everyone take a stand. It’s time.
On February 24, 2021 at 10:34 am, Frank Clarke said:
“…the fact that someone cannot visually ascertain the presence of a firearm doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
In other fields, we might phrase this as: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” ‘Nuff said.
On the topic of “the literacy levels of modern journalists”, I note the following:
“There are important issues right now that we could be effecting people right now that we could be handling, but…”.
Issues could be AFfecting people right now, but they could not be EFfecting those poor people. It’s certain that those two words SOUND alike, but editors are supposed to know the difference. They’re also supposed to insert ellipses (…) when they, for example, trim away one set of “right now”s.
If the folk in charge of writing the first draft of our history are illiterate, what in heaven’s name is that history going to look like?
(Don’t answer that.)
On February 24, 2021 at 11:07 am, Geoff said:
I live in South Carolina and have a CWP, but come Summer with the high humidity and temperatures, concealed carry causes you to sweat profusely in about 5 minutes. I go shop in North Carolina since I live only 20 miles from Whiteville.
On February 24, 2021 at 1:02 pm, Michael (from Utah) said:
Why and when was open carry criminalized in the first place? This kind of thing makes no sense to me.
I know that Florida similarly doesn’t allow open carry unless you’re fishing (as I recall).
I’m always surprised when I find these kinds of restrictions in the south, which I’ve usually thought of as being far more free than the north.