XPost: alt.fan.states.south-carolina, alt.politics.republicans, sac.politics XPost: talk.politics.guns

On 20 Feb 2022, Jesus Guns Babies <rickylowrent@gmail.com> posted some news:sutakg$tl8$2@dont-email.me:

Excellent move! All for it.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina would provide free gun training and
allow anyone who can legally own a gun to carry their weapon in public
under a bill that passed the state Senate on Thursday.

The training was a compromise that finally brought two weeks of debate to
an end, convincing a handful of Republicans reluctant to allow open
carrying of guns without encouraging the class currently needed to get a concealed weapons permit — a position that also worried a number of law enforcement leaders.

The bill was approved on a 28-15 vote. One Republican voted against it and
one Democratic senator voted for it.

The proposal now returns to the House to see if they will agree to the
Senate’s changes.

Twenty-seven other states allow open carry of guns without a permit,
including nearly every one in the Deep South.

Traditional gun-free zones like hospitals, schools and the Statehouse
would remain as well as businesses that choose to ban weapons.

The Senate version of the bill also would require a statewide advertising campaign to let people know about the free concealed weapons permit
training classes while also informing residents that guns can be carried
openly by anyone 18 or over.

Supporters of the proposal also added enhanced penalties if someone is convicted of carrying a gun in a place weapons are prohibited and do not
have the concealed weapons permit.

Allowing open carry of weapons has been a goal of Republican Sen. Shane
Martin since he was elected to the Senate in 2008. He said the bill isn’t exactly what he wanted, but it is close and compromise was needed to get
it passed.

“I don’t think it’s going to cause as many problems as they think it’s
going to because the one thing we have to remember is the criminals are
always going to be carrying,” the senator from Spartanburg County said.

Opponents to the compromise reached at 11:45 p.m. Wednesday were still
stunned as the final vote came up about 15 hours later.

They were almost all Democrats and said Republicans wanted to spend
millions of dollars on gun training and promoting people to buy weapons
while rejecting Medicaid expansion or expanding summer feeding programs
for poor children because it is too expensive.

“I think what we’re doing today is going to turn our state into the Wild,
Wild West. No licenses, no training, inadequate background checks,” said
Sen. Mia McLeod of Columbia, an independent who often votes with
Democrats.

Some conservatives were initially torn by the weight of a number of law enforcement leaders who said they worry about armed people with a lack of training as well as officers arriving at shooting scenes where they might encounter a number of armed people as they try to assess who is a threat
and who is trying to help.

The bill includes new state penalties of at least five years when a felon
is convicted of a crime using a gun. Police had been imploring for this proposal for years and its inclusion in the open carry bill was seen as a compromise.

Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster also has been urging
lawmakers to pass the new penalties and asked the House to approve the
Senate bill and get it to his desk as soon as possible.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey if Edgefield said the bill likely wouldn’t have passed without the free training and another proposal
that would add up to an additional three years in prison for someone
convicted of a gun crime who has not taken the concealed weapons permit
class.

Massey didn’t get a formal estimate on how much it will cost to have at
least two free training classes a week in each of the state’s 46 counties. Based on the number of concealed weapons permits issued in the state each
year, he estimated it would cost at least $4 million.

https://apnews.com/article/free-gun-class-south-carolina-open-carry- 02cabc339bb2325c995be200425a7889

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