Should South Carolina residents who own guns legally be allowed to carry them openly in public without a concealed weapons permit?
A state Senate subcommittee has passed a bill that would allow gun owners to carry their weapons openly in public without a permit, according to the Anderson Independent Mail.
The bill, which will go before the Senate Judiciary committee next month, would eliminate current state requirements that gun owners undergo a background check and be complete an eight-hour training course before being issued a concealed weapons permit.
The subcommittee signed off on the bill over the objections of several law enforcement agencies, the Independent Mail reports.
Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Officers’ Association said the training and background checks were necessary.
Allowing gun owners to openly carry weapons in public will make police officers' jobs more difficult as they respond to shootings, he said.
“It muddies the water, plain and simple,” he said. “We are going to look at anyone who has a gun and how do we know who the person is who is the good guy and the person who is the bad guy?”
Several amendments have been added to the bill, whose main sponsor is Sen. Lee Bright.
Those amendments include allowing employers to keep guns out of their workplaces and prohibiting any convicted felon from owning a handgun in South Carolina.
Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, chairs the Senate Judiciary committee. He told the Pickens Sentinel the bill still needs work.
“They have adopted some amendments but (the legislation) still has some serious drafting errors,” Martin said. “It raised questions about the current CWP laws, and I asked them to really make sure that any bill they reported out did not repeal or impede our CWP law. I think they’ve addressed that in their amendments.”
Martin doesn't believe many people would take advantage of the ability to openly carry without a permit, if the bill does pass.
“If we keep our CWP law, I don’t anticipate there being that many people openly carrying simply because it’s permitted,” Martin told the Sentinel. “Our CWP law is widely accepted, and I don’t believe that many people will opt to openly carry.”
Speak Out: What do you think of this bill? Do you think gun owners should be allowed to carry their guns in public without a CWP? Are the permit, training and background checks necessary? What do you think about law enforcement officers' concerns with the bill? If the bill does pass, would you be likely to carry your weapons in public?
Tell us in the comments!