So we discussed the awful Luke Rankin, head of the South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee, and how the committee managed to stall open carry just long enough that it wouldn’t be heard this year.

But there is news from S.C.

A state Senate often resistant to loosening South Carolina’s gun regulations could next week pass legislation that would further expand those rules by allowing legal gun owners to carry their weapon out in the open.

In a 3-2 vote down party lines Thursday morning, a Senate Judiciary Committee panel advanced a House-sponsored bill — H. 3904 — that would still restrict where someone could carry their gun, but allow permitted gun owners with the required training to carry their gun out in the open in the public if they so choose.

But hours later, and minutes before the Senate adjourned for the week, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey successfully pulled the bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, placing the bill on the chamber’s priority list when senators return Tuesday.

The Legislature only has six days left on its regular work calendar, and Republicans have called for the measure to be a priority before the legislative session ends.

“That’s the only way we’re going to have an opportunity to have a full debate on it before the session ends is to do that,” said Massey, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee. “There’s significant interest among our caucus to try to move forward with it, so we made it an issue that we want to try and address this year.”

So after the “panel” heard it (a subcommittee of the full committee, no, I’m not making this up) and then sent it on to the full committee, who doubtless would have further stalled it, Shane Massey apparently got sick of it and pulled the bill from the committee.

There must be some thick, heavy politics going on in South Carolina.

From here we hope this gets a vote.  The real name taking and vote counting starts.  Every word will be recorded, every vote tallied, and the record permanent.

Take care what you do, gentlemen.  We’re watching you.

Epoch Times.

A group of Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), have introduced a bill that would allow individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state to exercise those rights in any other state with concealed carry laws.

“This bill focuses on two of our country’s most fundamental constitutional protections—the Second Amendment’s right of citizens to keep and bear arms and the Tenth Amendment’s right of states to make laws best-suited for their residents,” Cornyn said in a statement. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance this important legislation for law-abiding gun owners nationwide.”

Says the man who, along with Lindsey Graham and Rubio is pushing federal red flag laws.  No thanks Senator quisling.  I’ll do without your bill.

Besides, if you really cared, you’d make it applicable to more than just “any other state with concealed carry laws.”  And I have no desire to get on any federal list of persons with permits.

This is pandering to idiots.  Don’t be one.  Just say no to this bill.

Ammoland.

This correspondent has been involved in the struggle to restore Second Amendment rights for more than 50 years. For much of that period, many of those who wanted the Second Amendment to be honored in the United States asked a simple question:

Why doesn’t the NRA[or any other pro 2A group] bring a case to the Supreme Court?

[ … ]

So our example group, the NRA, would not bring a case, because the courts had made clear they would not enforce the Constitution. The courts routinely chipped away at Constitutional checks and balances, including the Second Amendment, for decades after the revolution in the courts brought about by Progressives.

The Heller case was not brought by the NRA. It was brought by Robert A. Levy of the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think-tank. They believed the time was finally ripe for a case.

[ … ]

President Reagan was able to place Justice Scalia, an originalist, to the Supreme Court in 1986, and wishy-washy Kennedy in 1988. President G.W. Bush appointed the stalwart Thomas in 1991. Chief Justice Roberts, who claims to be an originalist, was appointed in 2005.  Justice Alito, an originalist, was appointed in 2006. Those five were just enough to overturn the ban on the ownership of handguns in the District of Columbia in D.C. vs Heller in 2008.  The decision was severely restricted by the insistence of including limitations on the Second Amendment, to obtain the vote of Justice Kennedy, as engineered by Justice Stevens.

From the abajournal.com:

Stevens previously has called for repeal of the Second Amendment or a clarification saying it applies only to people serving in militias.

In the book, Stevens said he had hoped to persuade Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas to agree with him that the amendment was intended to prevent the disarmament of state militias. He circulated his dissent emphasizing historical texts supporting his view in hopes it would prove persuasive.

His only success, he said, was in getting Kennedy to persuade Justice Antonin Scalia to include language limiting the reach of his majority decision in Heller.

Here is the limiting language Justice Stevens claims to have been influential in having inserted, in trade for Justice Kennedy’s vote:

Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

A major point of disagreement among Second Amendment supporters was how to approach the problem.

One group claimed anything but full and complete recognition of Second Amendment rights was futile and counter-productive. The argument was: any lesser legislation, moving incrementally toward full Second Amendment rights, would only legitimize infringements on those rights. They were/are the “All or Nothing” group. Some called/call themselves “principled”.

The other group of Second Amendment supporters argued Second Amendment rights could be restored bit by bit. Pass legislation first, for a permit system. Keep reforming and improving the permit system. Reduce requirements, reduce fees, reduce “gun-free zones”.  Keep on incrementally improving the law, until Second Amendment rights were fully restored. They were/are the “Incrementalists”.  In the middle 1990’s it was not clear if either approach would be effective.

Twenty years later, it was clear. Second Amendment Incrementalism worked.

He goes on to outline some of the success.  This is an educated and valuable read, and I commend it to you.

I am an incrementalist as I’ve explained before.  But this isn’t the same thing as what Dean is describing.

I support incrementalism when it is in our benefit.  Thus, I support open carry for South Carolina now, and then work on constitutional carry next year.  We can’t let perfect become the enemy of good.

Where I differ with Dean is his invoking the example of the NRA.  While I have no comment on NRA refusal to take a case to the Supreme Court, the incrementalism Dean is describing of the NRA isn’t really the incrementalism for which they’re hated.

They sided with the NFA, the Hughes Amendment, the initial AWB, and the bump stock ban, and against open carry in many states.  They haven’t just incrementally or judiciously surveyed the court scene to ascertain the best time or strategy to ensure 2A rights.

They have incrementally given away recognition of God-given rights.  They will always be hated for that, as they should be.