Most SC lawmakers know that claims that having more armed citizens makes us safer are at best illusions, at worst, dangerously wrong – as demonstrated again on Thursday, when another report came out indicating just the opposite, with the highest number of firearm deaths per capita in the states with the most permissive gun laws and the lowest mortality rates in the states with the least permissive laws.
But the gun lobby is vocal, persistent, affluent and extremely influential in Republican primary races, and many of our legislators fear the political consequences if they do not sufficiently support our society’s weaponry.
So with gun advocates on every corner pushing for their paradoxically called “constitutionally sized” bill (if people had the constitutional right to carry any weapon they wanted wherever they wanted, there would be no need for a law authorizing it ), many lawmakers are supporting an “open transport” bill to allow people with permission for concealed weapons to load their weapons in plain sight.
For many lawmakers, it seems like a smart strategic move – a significant liberalization of state arms laws that could take a little breath away from efforts to allow everyone to openly carry weapons wherever they want, with no necessary training, permission or background checks or anything.
And so, H.3094 easily released a House subcommittee on Wednesday, although supporters who spoke in favor of it were largely outnumbered by hidden weapon license holders, doctors and police officers who warned it would encourage aggression. and would assist in intimidation efforts and make it almost impossible for the police to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. So much for the legislators’ claims that they respect, support and want to do everything they can to protect the police; this lasts only as long as the police do not point out how the things that lawmakers want to do would put them in danger.
To be fair to supporters, South Carolina’s hidden weapons law does not seem to have been the disaster that many predicted; there are good reasons to believe that the majority of license holders are law-abiding citizens who are unlikely to get into shootouts just because someone insulted them. And certainly, if we had to liberalize our weapons law, we would prefer to expand how people can carry weapons after taking a course and passing a test and background check and registering for SLED than simply going to the Wild West.
But the problem is this: we don’t need to liberalize our gun laws.
We don’t need to liberalize our gun laws.
And we must not liberalize our gun laws.
Supporters say H.3094 would simply bring South Carolina in line with the 45 states that allow people to openly carry weapons. This argument is, at best, misleading, because what “open transport” means is different in most states. In Hawaii, for example, this means that people can carry an unseen weapon if a police chief grants them a license in an “exceptional case”, and only in that county. Utah is on the list because state law allows people to carry a discharged gun in public. Pennsylvania allows licensed people to carry weapons – unless they are in Philadelphia. Other states also impose geographic restrictions.
In addition, the argument is reminiscent of, “but Mom, All the kids are doing this. “
And going unanswered in the hope of deflating extremist demands for the repeal of our state’s modest arms restrictions is like renaming all the roads and buildings named after George Washington in an effort to appease extremists who demand that we topple all monuments to our first president.
Both ideas should not be initiated.
