“A Senate subcommittee passed a bill to thunderous applause Wednesday that would allow people to carry guns in public in South Carolina without a concealed weapons permit,” lohud.com reports. Like many in law enforcement, Charleston Police Capt. Brian Ambrose is SO against the idea of open carry, constitutional carry or open constitutional carry. Capt. Ambrose worries “it will make officers’ jobs harder because they will have to wait for someone openly holding a gun to commit a crime before they can confront them.” How about that? Speaking on behalf of the South Carolina chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, Former State Law Enforcement Division Chief Robert Stewart showed an equal understanding of the document he’d sworn to defend. Apparently, “there are more rights in the constitution than just the right to bear arms . . . ”

“You also have a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness whether you carry a gun or not carry a gun.”

What was that about it being better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool? Anyway, good luck to them, ’cause I reckon Open Carry is the way forward for American gun rights.

It’s the reverse of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s doomed effort to force cigarette retailers to hide their product. You can’t ignore gun rights if there they are, gun-shaped, right in front of you. Until or unless you can. Which is just how it should be.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. Nice to know Police Capt. Brian Ambrose, as far as guns are concerned, is a member of the “guilty until proven innocent” crowd.

    • If Ambrose is scared, I’m sure they’re hiring at WalMart, and I’m also sure they’ll have no trouble replacing him at the police station.

  2. Wow! Waiting for someone to actually commit a crime BEFORE the police confront them. What a wonderful concept.

    • Hold on just a second. So how then can they be confronted before they commit a crime? Under this system, only the criminals will be arrested. Oh no!

    • I laughed at that line… so police like the privilege of being able to confront law-abiding citizens who haven’t committed crime?

      Pshhht.

  4. I live in Charleston and it saddens me to say that it’s the most left wing city in the state. Don’t get me wrong, we are still mostly righties here, but a lot of big city retirees love our warm weather. Lets just pray they don’t get in the way of this bill passing.

    • Give Gov O’malley a nice warm hug deserving when hes down there on the 23rd. Hes there to raise your taxes and take your guns.

    • No kidding Jeff. The last thing Charleston needs is more New York libs moving down and ruining our city like they did theirs.

      I hope open carry scares at least some of them back up north to Nanny Bloomberg!

  5. This does not put in place any restriction on the police confronting a citizen, with or without a gun. What it does is compel them to confront each citizen in a polite and respectful manner in keeping with the “innocent until proven guilty” concept. How is this a problem?

    • It is a problem in that it imposes being nice on cops. The way they see it-you got a gun=you are a problem. Now if they see a gun they cannot just jump you, they would actually have to see you F*ck up. Damn……before they did not even have to THINK……and as we have seen repeatedly oftentimes cops ain’t exactly thinkers…..this of course thankfully does not apply to every cop……….

  6. Police that are actually politicians: FO.

    The head of SLED used to be all for constitutional carry. And I think he was black!

    SC residents: don’t fear the piggies. Fear the retail federation and tourism industries. Remember what happened to Florida in 2011.

    SC residents

  8. I never thought I’d be jealous of my more southerly neighbors, but this makes it a pretty close call.

  9. Wow. Is anyone taking score? Deer Obama’s attack on the 2nd Amendment may have netted laws in a few states in his favor, but I am hearing about a lot more states enacting laws like this. A few months ago, their were 4 states where concealed weapons were allowed without a permit. I read an article a couple of weeks ago where there are now 7…and the list is growing. This law is allowing open carry. I wonder how many other states are doing the same or considering it.

    • Negative. It’s been introduced in a couple states and failed. This is the 2nd time it has been tried in SC, the last time in 2011. Don’t hold your breath. Neocons love massa’s permission slips and hate open carry. This is the state that elected the Ron Paul hating Lindsey Graham after all.

    • I wouldn’t give Obama credit for this. Gun Laws over the last decade have been moving more pro2a except for a handful of state. Unfortunately that handful contain a huge percentage of the population.

      Thanks
      Robert

  11. I’ve always liked SC, but they’re still one of the nine states that won’t accept any of my carry permits. I always refer to them as SEMI-COMMIES, but the other eight states are still full blown no good COMMIES. Hopefully they’ll see the light and they’ll be on the good list.

  13. so now everybodys wearing a gun, instead of asking them for thier money , now Im just gonna shoot you armed civilians and take yo money.cause hell every body got a f#%&ing gun ! no matter how many guns you got on you concealed or not
    Punkmofo gots the jump on you !

    • You’re going to need two guns.

      One to shoot the guy OC, and one to shoot the guy carrying concealed that drew on you while you were lining up your sights. Let me know how that works out for you.

  14. Charleston is as much a part of South Carolina as New York City is a part of the Upstate or Chicago is a part of Illinois or Philadelphia is a part of the Keystone State.

    The difference being that Charleston’s politics don’t dominate the rest of us in the Lowcountry, Midlands, or Piedmont. Don’t get me wrong, the Port City is a great place to visit but it is definitely its own culture. Charleston’s police chiefs are themselves a separate history within the state.

  15. A cop who endorses or supports gun grabbing is a traitorous, filthy pig.
    If they gots guns, we gots guns.

  16. Look at Arizona.

    We passed Constitutional Carry three years ago and there hasn’t been a shred of a problem. Not even our Gannet-owned Arizona Republic newspaper has managed to dig up enough to go all chicken little over folks carrying without a permit. Even better is the Republics resident left-wing editorialist Montini hasn’t found enough reason to bash it since it passed.

    The fact is Constitutional Carry hurts no one but bad guys.

  17. What a joke the LEO is. How would this make your job more difficult? Because we all know criminals open carry right? That’s like a drug dealer snorting coke on the hood of a squad car. Criminals are not going to be open carrying. They don’t want it to be obvious. geez

  18. I live right here in Columbia, SC and Im hopeful that it passes. I already have a CCP but the idea that I could open carry if I wanted to would be awesome. Especially come summer time when concealed carry is harder when its 140 degrees…..

  19. “…they will have to wait for someone openly holding a gun to commit a crime before they can confront them.”

    Well braid by beard and call my Anders! You mean you won’t be able to stop and harass just anyone you want? This is an outrage! An outrage I say!

  20. It looks like we are going to mirror Arizona’s approach to hand gun carry law. Living so close to Charlotte, NC I drive through NC almost every single day so I will still need my CWP and of course the NISC exemption is almost worth it alone.

    They are also adding carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, removing blanket banning in churches and medical facilities if nothing is posted and amended the constitutional carry rules to have the same limits as the concealed carry restrictions.

    Hopefully this stuff still passes, getting out of committee with a 5-0 vote means it can’t be scuttled by one person later like restaurant carry keeps getting pushed back for a full vote. This will get a full vote it appears.

  21. Color me shocked that he is annoyed that the popo can’t just confront people who are not committing crimes. Who’d a thunk such a thing was GOOD?

  22. I have a residence in South Carolina and a SC CWP. If the bill passes into law, I won’t be open carrying in populated areas because I would feel like a bit of a target. My area has tons of summer tourists. However, most of them come from gun-friendly states. Those with NY, NJ, MA and MD plates on their cars will just have to drive another day or so to Florida, where all the carrying goes on covered.

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