Statist Republicans Kill ‘Constitutional Carry’ Bill In South Carolina

by Bob Livingston 
A bill that would allow South Carolinians to carry guns openly or concealed without first receiving the State’s sanction through a permit was killed by Republicans. It failed to advance out of the State’s Judiciary Committee — despite a large Republican majority — under strong opposition from Republican Senator Larry Martin.
The bill is called Constitutional Carry. Backers say its premise is based on the fact that the 2^nd Amendment is the only permit needed to carry a weapon.
Understanding the Republican statist position opposing the bill requires following tortured logic. It was best described by Martin himself in response to a constituent who asked him to vote to advance the bill, as reported by BenSwan.com.

“If the 2nd amendment has been as you interpret it, why hasn’t SC law reflected that for the last 140 years? I’m sorry but you are describing an ‘unlimited’ right that has never been the case with the 2nd Amendment. My view of the 2nd Amendment has always been the right to own guns and keep them in our homes, business, and property and not to wear a gun whenever to wherever I pleased.”
Of course, the Founders thought quite differently. Amazingly, so did the 9^th Circuit Court last week. It ruled in a 2^nd Amendment case that:

"The Second Amendment secures the right not only to “keep” arms but also to “bear” them—the verb whose original meaning is key in this case. Saving us the trouble of pulling the eighteenth-century dictionaries ourselves, the Court already has supplied the word’s plain meaning: “At the time of the founding, as now, to ‘bear’ meant to ‘carry.’” Heller, 554 U.S. at 584.3 Yet, not “carry” in the ordinary sense of “convey[ing] or transport[ing]” an object, as one might carry groceries to the check-out counter or garments to the laundromat, but “carry for a particular purpose—confrontation.” Id."

The bill was sponsored by Senator Lee Bright, a conservative who has mounted a primary challenge against Senator John McCain’s hand puppet, chicken hawk Senator Lindsay Graham (who lied about serving in a war theater). It was supported by Governor Nikki Haley. The four Republicans who voted to move the bill to the full Senate were Bright, Shane Martin, Katrina Shealy and Tom Corbin.
The trend in many States is toward restoration of 2^nd Amendment rights that have been eroded over the years. In April 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a Constitutional Carry Bill. Mississippi passed a similar bill last year. Alabama passed a bill affirming “open carry” last year, but that legislation still restricts carrying in a vehicle without a permit — a provision insisted upon by the Alabama Sheriff’s Association.