Ammoland.

For the 2021 legislative session, Representative Bobby Cox (R-19) introduced House Bill 3094 to allow citizens who hold a concealed weapons permit to carry a handgun in the manner they choose. Currently, South Carolina is one of just five states that do not explicitly allow open carry, among them Illinois, New York, and California. Self-defense situations are difficult to predict and everyone has different circumstances. It is unreasonable for the law to impose a one-size-fits-all method of carrying a handgun for self-defense.

Yet another chance.  This has been on the agenda of some patriots for a long time in South Carolina, but alas, they have to fight three lobbies: (1) Columbia, S.C., (2) Greenville, S.C., and (3) Lower State (esp. Charleston, S.C.).

What will happen this time?  Here’s a prediction.  The cowards in South Carolina won’t even let it get to the floor for a vote.  If it does, the progressives have to self identify, and we couldn’t have that, could we?

Report from South Carolina.

“We’re at a standstill both with gun reform and gun expansion,” Charleston Democratic Sen. Marlon Kimpson said this week. “I don’t think you’ll see any of those bills come to the floor this year and, if they do, it will be purely for political posturing.”

Senate Bill 139, which  would allow anyone to carry a weapon without a permit, is on the Senate calendar for second reading, but falls further behind every day on the chamber’s contested slate. Carrying weapons without a permit is known by supporters as “constitutional carry.”

But most bills on either side of the issue remain without hearings in committees. Kimpson is a sponsor of Senate Bill 731, which would expand background checks, also known as closing the Charleston loophole. The bill has been pushed every year since a white supremacist slayed nine black church goers in Charleston in 2015. It would extend the wait time for FBI background checks from three days to five days in South Carolina.  It is stuck without a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

A guy by the name of Peter Zalka is at the root of trouble-making on this.  Listen to his reasons, and make sure to notice the headline (“Pro-Second Amendment Group Concerned Over ‘Open Carry’ Bills).

“Passage of this bill will allow anyone to openly carry a revolver or semi-automatic handgun in any public establishment such as a grocery store, movie theater, or Walmart. Spending legislative time and effort to pass any laws that would make legal the open carry of handguns (with or without a permit) makes South Carolina no safer at best, with significant negative effects on our communities a given.”

Zalka called the proposed legislation a threat to public safety and public health.

“The world would look like a different place,” he said. “Imagine being in Charleston at a park or Spoleto, something like that, and all around us there are folks wearing their guns on their hip. They have no training, no permit, no understanding of South Carolina laws.”

Zalka said he spent the day hand-delivering letters of opposition to lawmakers, including letters from physicians, law enforcement, and other nonprofit organizations.

[ … ]

Groups like South Carolina Carry feel the opposition is simply fearmongering.

“We are surrounded by open carry states. North Carolina has open carry, Georgia has open carry, Tennessee has open carry,” said Dan Roberts, Outreach Director for South Carolina Carry. “They all have vibrant tourism industries and no problem with people being terrified at the sight of a firearm. So, is South Carolina somehow special? It’s ridiculous.”

He had a moment of truth there.  This is all about the effete gentry class in Charleston wanting to make sure their tourism isn’t affected.

But the truth is also told by South Carolina Carry.  ““We are surrounded by open carry states. North Carolina has open carry, Georgia has open carry, Tennessee has open carry,” said Dan Roberts, Outreach Director for South Carolina Carry. “They all have vibrant tourism industries and no problem with people being terrified at the sight of a firearm.”

There won’t be blood running in the streets, and that lie was told in Texas, Oklahoma and everywhere open carry has been legalized.  It’s been debunked, so let that one go, controllers.

So if you’re a South Carolina reader, have you joined South Carolina Carry?  Are you active in this fight?  The enemy sure is.  Because if you’re not active, you have no right to complain when you’re compared to California, Hawaii and New York.

Opinion.

I am asking everyone to consider the folly of passing State Law S-139 (Open Carry).

As a gun owner, concealed carry weapons permit holder and a member at a local shooting range. I applaud our state’s concealed carry permitting program and my fellow South Carolinians who have taken advantage of it. It is comforting to know that so many of our residents are responsible and committed gun owners.

The proposed changes to S 139 (with or without a permit) do nothing to ensure gun rights. In fact, they would do more to erode the rights of the majority of our population who do not choose to arm themselves every time they leave home. Instead, they would become vulnerable to a minority of individuals who, for reasons of their own, feel they must display their power on their hip.

Perhaps the armed stranger has had hours of classroom and range time … perhaps not. How would we know?

I have written before that “I don’t want an amateur with a gun anywhere near me. I certainly don’t want to be one.” By passing constitutional carry/open carry, we are not serving our citizens. In fact, it is just the opposite. We allow a portion of our population to endanger themselves and their neighbors.

If we have learned anything from the opioid epidemic, it is that a large number of people simply cannot be trusted to behave. We fail this population and their victims by promoting open carry and the display of firearms with or without a permit.

We have an opportunity in South Carolina to set the bar for gun rights, gun safety and responsible stewardship of the Second Amendment. With or without a permit, constitutional/open carry accomplishes none of this.

Bill Ware, Spartanburg

Well Bill, I think you have psychological problems.

First, as to your remark “Perhaps the armed stranger has had hours of classroom and range time … perhaps not. How would we know?,” you’ve neglected to address the very issue that defeats your argument.  Concealed carry, which you allege to support.

You also don’t know whether a person is carrying concealed, you see?  You’ve stated that the only problem as you see it is that when someone hides a weapon, you don’t have to think about the fact that someone could intend to bring your harm, but when they openly carry, you must think about that fact.

This is entirely a mental problem with you, you see?  This has nothing whatsoever to do with the question can someone be safe with a firearm, can someone bring you harm, can someone be trusted.  It has only to do with your mental state.  I refuse to be part of your twisted mental world where hiding problems makes them go away.  I hope South Carolina residents see this the way I do.

Second, as to your statement that “a large number of people simply cannot be trusted to behave,” you don’t know that.  You just made it up.  You’re in the same category of the chicken little naysayers in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere who said “There will be blood running in the streets” if this law passes.

And none of that happened.  In fact, I live in an open carry state, and there isn’t blood running in the streets.  So you see, you made a problem out of something that isn’t.  You fabricated a falsehood.

Finally, since the RKBA is a God-given right, I’m not beholden to your views of making the world a better place for you and other collectivists.  That’s not the purpose of the second amendment.  The second amendment is a right, not a license for you to try to control other people.

You have things exactly backwards.

So says some dude named Brian Hicks.

A substitute teacher in Alabama accidentally fired his gun in a first-grade classroom recently. No one was hurt, luckily.

In Michigan, a man threw his shoe at a cockroach — forgetting that’s where he kept his pistol. He literally shot himself in the foot.

And in New Mexico, a driver showing off his 9 mm to a friend in the passenger seat accidentally shot a woman … in the car next to them.

All these accidents occurred within the past month. Know what else they have in common?

They all happened in states that allow open carry, which means just about anyone can carry a gun anywhere, whether or not they know the first thing about firearms.

Well, there are a lot of categories under which we could put this formal logical fallacy, but let’s begin with affirming the consequent (or the undistributed middle).  The failures he mentioned could have been related to names, education, the first letters of the states they live in, or any of a number of things.  Brian is merely affirming that he knows the cause of the failures and that they all related to constitutional carry.  He has not demonstrated anything with this bit of misleading prose  Let’s continue.

And some folks wonder why South Carolina lawmakers are hesitant to pass an open carry law here.

Well, it’s not going to happen this year. The controversial legislation is unofficially off the table — because law enforcement is treating a social media post as a threat on Charleston state Rep. Peter McCoy’s life.

You read that correctly.

The Freedom Action Network of South Carolina posted an incendiary statement on Facebook blaming McCoy for the Legislature’s failure to turn this state into the Wild West.

This bit of emotional hyperbole is exactly the same as what they said in Texas before it became an open carry state, and it’s meant for ignorant people to read.  In fact, it’s what every state has said, and South Carolina is one of the few remaining holdouts, along with California, Hawaii, New York and New Jersey.  How about that, Brian.  Aren’t you ensconced a bit far to the South to be following the lead of New Yorkers?  Let’s continue with this messy commentary.

Most say open carry is foolhardy and dangerous.

They’re right. The proposed South Carolina open carry law would let anyone carry a gun onto school grounds and into public parks or bars without demonstrating they know the difference between a clip and a trigger.

I’m sure they do, Brian.  Law enforcement doesn’t like it when they can’t be special.  But I think you’re lying.  I don’t think you really want LEOs to be banned from openly carrying weapons, you just want people who aren’t special to remain banned.  But if you were honest, you’d see that it’s cops who perpetrate most of the negligent discharges, shoot most of the innocent people, and cause the most danger to the community.

Well, that about does it.  If you want to read the rest of Brian’s droll commentary, I’ve linked it.  But if you don’t like “propaganda,” Brian, how about a little truth-telling.  You’re a communist, just like the state senator who was looking for an excuse to terminate consideration of the open carry bill in S.C.  And the fact that the senate was already looking for ways to kill the bill makes us wonder what else was going on behind the scenes.

So says the Greenville News.

The push for open carry gun laws in South Carolina has backfired after one of the bill’s supporters threatened a top state lawmaker.

In response, a state Senate subcommittee chairman postponed Tuesday’s hearing on the bill, effectively killing it for the year by ensuring it misses a Wednesday deadline to pass either the House or the Senate.

State Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown, tweeted Monday he was postponing the hearing “until further notice.”

“Even though I’m supportive of Open Carry ideals, I will not stand by and allow threats to my friends,” Goldfinch wrote in support of S.C. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter McCoy, the Charleston Republican who received the threat.

McCoy is being monitored by law enforcement after a gun rights activist took to social media to suggest shooting McCoy for allegedly holding up an open carry proposal.

The open carry bill would allow lawful gun owners to carry their firearms, concealed or not, without a permit in South Carolina.

We really need for some South Carolinian to weigh in on this, but my spidey sense tells me something else is going on here.

It could be someone who didn’t think that he’s being monitored 24/7, like we all are.  Or it just could be a mercenary for some some controller who knows how to bounce his IP address around to avoid detection, who wanted to send the hearings into a tail spin.  In other words, a false flag.  You know it happens, more often than you think.

After all, the controllers can’t afford to lose the remaining holdout by South Carolina throwing off the shackles of control by elitists.

News from South Carolina:

Bills on either side of the gun debate have gone nowhere. That includes legislation by Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, to extend the FBI background check period from three days to five days — versions of which he’s pushed in every session since the 2015 shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, when nine black parishioners were gunned down. Kimpson managed to get a hearing last month, but the bill didn’t advance. Neither has any other bill expanding gun background checks in this gun-friendly state. But neither have various “constitutional carry” bills that would allow adults to carry a gun, openly or concealed, without getting a weapons permit.

South Carolina = California = New York = Hawaii = New Jersey.

I know that hurts my SC readers.  That one is a kick right to the balls.  I’m sorry.  But I have to tell the truth.

News from South Carolina:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Brad O’Neil is the part-owner of the Gun Vault in Pontiac.

He said he doesn’t see anything wrong with the renewed push for permit-less carry or ‘constitutional carry’ in South Carolina.

“The Constitution states the right to keep and bear arms. Which in itself means you can keep and bear arms,” O’Neil said.

There are bills filed at the State House that would allow anyone who can legally purchase a gun, to carry it on public places that permit it.

The bills also lay out some restrictions on where a firearm can be carried, openly or concealed. Those include police stations, polling locations on Election Day, courthouses and daycares.

Here we go again.  It happens every year.  The politicians tease this issue, and then it dies in committee.

So what’s going to happen this year?  Does it have a chance?  Will South Carolina finally leave the ranks of California and New York and decriminalize open carry?  It’s way past time, you know.

Greenville News:

A bill that would allow lawful gun owners to carry their firearms without a permit has been removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s meeting agenda, and the chairman is not saying when it may return.

Its removal came as lawmakers and political candidates have debated what should be done to combat school shootings, and it came just days before a bill related to school safety receives a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The bill’s sponsor and members of the committee questioned this week by The Greenville News said they were not aware of the bill’s removal.

Sen. Luke Rankin, a Horry County Republican and chairman of the committee, said the bill was pulled by him to “to give full attention” to an abortion bill that was debated and passed by his committee Tuesday.

He said he did not know when the gun bill might return to the agenda but said its absence was not due to the recent school shooting in Florida.

Asked why he did not know when it might return, he said, “It was not on the agenda today. That is the answer.”

The controversial bill had been debated briefly at the last meeting of the committee two weeks ago, but no action was taken.

The so-called “Constitutional carry” or “open-carry” bill, sponsored by Sen. Shane Martin, a Spartanburg County Republican, would not do away with concealed weapons permits for those who wanted to carry their guns to other states.

[ … ]

On Wednesday a Senate judiciary subcommittee will hear a bill by Rep. Sandy Senn, a Charleston Republican, that would create the crime of threatening, soliciting or conspiring to threaten to use a firearm to cause injury, death or damage at a school, college or university.

This is news from February that I had missed because I wasn’t watching closely enough.  State Senator Luke Rankin is dismissive and haughty because he doesn’t care about gun rights.

I’ve made it clear not only that gun control has its roots in wickedness, but gun control also to do with how a many bears his arms.  Forcing a man to conceal his weapons is an act of shaming him and making him behave like a criminal.

But, he claims, they can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.  They want to focus on an abortion bill.  Good.  We’ll see if anything comes of that.  Meanwhile, they have the time to debate a bill that makes it a crime to engage in “threatening, soliciting or conspiring to threaten to use a firearm to cause injury, death or damage at a school, college or university,” or in other words, make something that is already a crime, a crime.

I think Senator Rankin is a liar and weasel.  I think they can chew gum and walk at the same time, and I think he is being coy and dismissive in order to hide something.

What is he trying to hide?  What does he believe about gun owners and their manner of carry that he isn’t telling us because he is cowardly and doesn’t want us to know?

I also think it’s time to Larry Martin Mr. Rankin.  Mr. Rankin, you now have a target on your back.  You’re next, so look for something to do with your time other than be a state senator.

Greenville News:

Although federal law prohibits convicted felons from possessing guns, local and state law enforcement officers as a rule don’t work to enforce federal laws, lawmakers say. State law bans only those convicted of violent crimes from possessing guns.

The bill prompted questions by Sen. Brad Hutto, an Orangeburg Democrat, starting with why a 36-year-old who was convicted at age 22 of breach of trust with fraudulent intent for embezzlement shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun.

“They’ve done their time,” Hutto said. “They’re fully off probation. Now they’re gainfully employed. They’re married. They’re a deacon in their church. Why are we going to reach back to those people that I would think have just as much right to defend themselves in their own house?”

Hembree said it is already federal law that the embezzler cannot own a firearm.

“But the federal government doesn’t come to my house every day, but the local constabulary might,” Hutto replied.

Hembree said the real solution is to fix the state’s expungement law instead of making the state law on guns different. Expungement is a court order that removes something from a person’s criminal record if that person meets certain conditions.

“You’re not fixing it by having a different state law,” Hembree said. “You’re fixing it by expungement, because if you fix it through expungement, then it’s not a federal violation. That’s the right way to fix it.”

Hutto said another problem with the bill is that if a spouse of a felon owns a gun, the spouse would have to remove it from the house. He believes most households in the state have guns for self-protection.

Hutto also said he wanted to be sure divorcing couples couldn’t use the law to remove each other’s firearms if a judge as a precaution placed a restraining order on both. He said in the heat of emotions, judges sometimes issue such orders to keep relative peace, while there is no evidence in many such cases of any threat of physical harm.

Good points sir.  I agree with every single one of them.  Now, tell me why you’re still ignoring the issue of open carry in South Carolina, and why you’re still like New York and California when it comes to how a man decides to carry his firearm?

What right by God do you have to make a man who openly carries his firearm a felon?  How can you defend an embezzler and call an open carrier a criminal?

I want to cover this ground one more time for good measure.  The lawmakers in South Carolina are toying with constitutional carry, and this is a small step forward for liberty, but the largest step has yet to be taken and is still opposed by the power brokers in South Carolina.  Open carry.

Please realize that as gun owners, you’ve been conditioned to be embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that you own and carry weapons.  What was once considered poor taste, ill-bred and even criminal, hiding your weapons, is now required of you in order to keep them out of sight of all of the offended parties.

You’ve been taught that all of your gun owning life.  You have holsters for concealed carry.  Instructors and trainers are there to teach you to draw and present from concealment.  You know all of the applicable laws on concealed carry for your state.  There are entire posts and videos on carrying in non-permissive environments.  It’s even in vogue for the gun community to criticize open carry and viciously attack open carriers, with largely irrelevant and ridiculous notions of tactical advantages on concealment.  Those advantages, as you know, cannot be demonstrated to be advantages with any statistical significance that meets the Central Limit Theorem.  Finally, the tactical advantages of open carry, which is quicker draw and presentation, is largely ignored in these conversations.

Comfort is largely irrelevant to the conversation, as is the fact that you’re sweating and dirtying your weapon with IWB carry.  All of these things are signs and symptoms of the fact that gun owners have been taught by society to respond like dogs or other pets by “operant conditioning.”  The first time you ever openly carried caused you some degree of self consciousness, didn’t it?  Just go ahead and admit it.  It’s useful to demonstrate my point.

Gun owners, and in particular open carriers, are treated like second class citizens, inferior men, uncouth savages, like those who have no etiquette, when exactly the opposite would have been true two hundred years ago.  That’s one reason I openly carry when I can.  In some small way I want to change all of this.  I open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”  So should you.