Holstered for years, do SC Republicans now have the power to pass expansive gun bill?
Former Senate Judiciary chairman Larry Martin says he will never forget the man who cornered him at a county street festival several years ago, demanding to know why the Pickens County Republican and gun owner was holding up legislation that would allow South Carolina gun owners to carry without a permit.
The truth was, Martin said, he’d held hearings on the bill as the chairman of the legislative committee vetting the legislation and lawmakers voted, striking the bill down.
But at that point it did not matter. Martin’s name ID had shot up on pro-Second Amendment email lists as “anti-gun.” Constituents had targeted him as the lone lawmaker in the way of passing less restrictive gun measures, and in 2016 Martin lost his Senate seat and legislative power in a GOP primary to state Sen. Rex Rice.
“I got that reputation as a result of all of that, being opposed to guns,” Martin said. “It’s like being Billy Graham and being opposed to the Ten Commandments. Nothing could be further from reality.”
If Martin’s loss was a preview of political tides turning, November was a red crescendo for the majority party.
They have passed a now court-blocked law banning most abortions and, in one chamber so far, have voted to allow the use of firing squads and the electric chair in executions. But soon, the South Carolina House will hold its next social fight over guns and whether hand guns in particular should be allowed out in the open, joining 45 other states.
The legislation is expected to pass the lower chamber. But even some of its backers are anxious over planned attempts to expand the legislation allowing any person to carry a firearm concealed or out in the open without a permit.
So far at least three Republican are poised to try to attach an amendment to the bill, adding the so-called constitutional carry provision, built on the belief that the Constitution gives gun owners the right to own and carry weapons without regulation. But inclusion of such a measure could force Republicans into a precarious choice between supporting that expansion, which could doom the bill, or backing the more limited bill, which is opposed by some in law enforcement but stands a better chance of becoming law.
Taking the second path could come back to haunt legislators when they’re up for reelection and opponents are looking for reasons to doubt their conservative credentials.
“Whatever the House sends the Senate, the political environment is such, with a 30-member historic majority in the Senate, they will pass whatever the House sends them,” said state Rep. Jonathon Hill, R-Anderson, who filed a constitutional carry amendment. “Politically speaking, they have no choice.”
As of print deadline, lawmakers were hashing out plans to take it up Wednesday or next week.
‘Consequences’ of losing
How the bill travels in the Senate will be key, a chamber where looser gun regulations have died in years past.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Luke Rankin, R-Horry, told The State he expected an appetite for passing open carry to come next year. Senators, too, mention the tight time frame to get a gun bill to the floor before May but also the the lack of surety a constitutional bill would pass.
State Sen. Larry Grooms, a Berkeley Republican who has sponsored his own constitutional carry measure, agreed with Rankin, saying open carry with a permit has a greater chance at becoming law. However, Grooms differed on the time frame, saying the chamber could take a vote this year.
But as a result of November’s elections when Republicans increased their majority, Democrats are less confident they and any allies across the aisle have the numbers to stop an open carry bill from passing.
For most of Martin’s legislative tenure in the House and Senate, he said gun proposals came and went, but the rhetoric amped up over the past decade, a result perhaps he said of former President Barack Obama’s two terms in office.
As judiciary chairman, Martin said he had fought gun owners, and his constituents in one of the state’s more conservative regions, to prevent legislation allowing the open carrying of firearms or worse, ridding the state of its strict concealed weapons permit laws.
That has changed, he said.
“All of the sudden, it’s the most pressing, God-fearing thing we can do,” Martin said. “After the election, one of the things came to mind. That bill will probably get passed now.”
If any election year was poised to be historic for South Carolina Democrats it was November 2020.
South Carolina Democrats had once held the majority in the State House, a controlling body that would lose its momentum in the House in the mid-1990s, then the Senate a few years later. But the COVID-19 outbreak last year had put about every lawmaker on notice and President Donald Trump’s national favorability was shrinking, what South Carolina Democrats hoped would trickle down ballot.
But South Carolina’s political red shade proved far steadier than the national climate, and Democrats lost five seats in the General Assembly. Two were in the House and three were in the Senate, all seats held by more moderate to conservative-leaning Democrats.
In their place, Republicans who fell further to the right ready to fall in line with their party.
On guns, Republicans had already made steady progress pushing bills to the governor’s desk that would expand public use.
It started years ago when the Legislature adopted the state’s initial concealed weapons permit law in the 1990s. And then, about 2010 is when the conversation and the “orchestrated effort to carry guns openly” with or without a permit started, Martin said.
In 2014, former Gov. Nikki Haley signed legislation into law allowing people with gun permits to carry into restaurants and bars that serve alcohol, as long as the gun owner does not drink alcohol and as long as the business permitted them to carry inside.
A few years later, the Legislature passed a bill giving out-of-state permit holders the OK to carry in South Carolina, even if those states do not recognize South Carolina’s concealed weapons law or do not have the same gun safety training.
Now, the legislative focus is on open carry and a proposal pushed by a former U.S. Army ranger and state Rep. Bobby Cox.
The bill filed by the Greenville Republican would allow permitted South Carolina gun owners to carry hand guns in the open, where guns are not otherwise prohibited, such as businesses that ban the public display of firearms or where guns are banned altogether, including the South Carolina State House complex and schools.
Some Democrats are fearful the push for open carrying of firearms is just the beginning of the pro-gun legislation that will hit the state.
“As a result of November, the ultra-conservative agenda is moving at a rapid pace, not only in the House but also in the Senate,” said state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, who has advocated for increased background checks and regulations over guns. “The likelihood that next year we witness military artillery in the streets of our state, main streets across the state, is a real possibility now. I would concur with the chairman of judiciary, this is a real possibility of becoming law in the state of South Carolina.”
But there is an effort that will hang above the GOP-controlled chamber soon when at least one Republican House member plans to try to expand the proposal to allow the public carry without a permit at all — a significant change that would potentially box in some Republicans and spark even more concern within the law enforcement community.
Cox said he has spoken to senators who back constitutional carry but do not believe it would make it through the chamber.
The open carry bill, Cox said, “is the best option right now based upon polling that’s done by the leadership and the ability for it to get to the Senate. But if constitutional carry gets tacked on, we’ll vote for it because that’s where we want to go. It is a tough spot.”
Attempts have been made in years past to push the measure through.
In 2014, Gov. Haley gave her public support for constitutional carry, but the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected a bill sponsored by former state Sen. Lee Bright, R-Spartanburg, entirely.
“It’s frustrating to me, ... when constituents demand it and the Republican primary voter demands that,” Bright told The State last week. “We (Republicans) have more numbers now than they had before, but they’ve tried to play both sides. They’ll go to the pro-gun rallies but then hug on the (pro-gun control group) Moms Demand Action. They try and play both sides, that’s the problem with politics.”
That dynamic, however, has changed.
Privately, moderate Republicans once confided to their Democratic colleagues their hesitations about backing such expansive gun bills. That concern seems to have subsided, Kimpson said.
“They used to be more vocal, but the dynamics on the Senate floor have definitely changed,” Kimpson said.
“Elections definitely have consequences.”
Open carry pushback
South Carolina Democrats are the minority in the House, limiting flexibility to kill legislation entirely.
If the gun bill’s last hearing was any indication, Democrats could try to impede the flow of the debate, attaching amendments that may limit where a gun can be carried openly or whether a police officer can stop someone and demand to see their permit, even if that person poses no threat.
Some in law enforcement have been critical of the bill, worried that it would complicate how they respond to some issues.
“There’s a greater potential for disagreements to turn violent when handguns are readily available due to open carry,” Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds testified last month.
A police officer able to stop someone requesting their permit is especially significant to Black lawmakers, who worry that Black gun owners will be stopped more regularly by police despite posing no threat. In 2016 in Minnesota, 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was Black, was pulled over by police and shot to death after the responding officer thought Castile was reaching for his gun after Castile indicated he had a weapon on him. Castile had a permit to carry.
“I’m a minority, male, 33 years old in the South. We get shot for doing really innocent stuff oftentimes, and it’s unfortunate,” state Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, who is a gun owner, said at a hearing on the bill this week.
Bamberg asked for a training requirement for law enforcement be attached to ensure Black gun owners are not disproportionately stopped.
“Because I sure as hell don’t want to catch a bullet,” Bamberg said. “As a law-abiding citizen trying to comply with a state statute, I want to be able to exercise my right just like everybody else.”
Republicans also say they feel boxed in too, concerned over the balance of backing the policy and protecting police.
State Rep. Bruce Bryant, a retired York County sheriff who also led the S.C. Sheriff’s Association, said he’s struggled with the dilemma created by law enforcement’s opposition to the bill, which he’s co-sponsoring with Cox.
“I feel like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth. I’m trying to protect my police officers on one side,” the York Republican told The State after the committee agreed to kick the open carry bill to the House floor for debate.
“I want to do anything I can to protect the police” Bryant said. “But yet I want to do everything I can to protect our Second Amendment right also.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Holstered for years, do SC Republicans now have the power to pass expansive gun bill?."
