PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
On concealed-carry reciprocity laws :: 03/08/2016
We were enjoying lunch at a North Augusta, South Carolina, restaurant recently when a potentially violent incident nearly broke out.
We overheard a man telling his lady friend, odd as it sounds, that he should probably beat up another man seated nearby. “Why?” she asked him. Because of the company name on the man’s shirt, he told her. It was the name of a well-known national corporation.
The man spoiling for a fight was either mentally ill or perhaps had an unforgettable customer service problem with the company.
At any rate, luckily the completely innocent object of the man’s scorn appeared not to have heard the threat, and eventually the belligerent customer and his lady friend left.
But for a few tense moments, we realized we could’ve been caught in the middle of a brawl.
Feeling a sense of obligation to step in and protect the unwary patron against his would-be attacker, we briefly wondered if being armed would’ve been a good idea.
We don’t know, even in retrospect. But it would’ve been nice to even have had the option.
As Georgia residents, however, we didn’t. For some reason which makes absolutely no sense in the middle of a violent confrontation, Georgia concealed-weapon carriers are not allowed to pack in neighboring South Carolina, and vice versa.
It’s called “reciprocity.” States have it with some states, and not with others.
We find that goofy to begin with; we carry our First Amendment rights across state lines — why shouldn’t we be allowed to take our Second Amendment rights too? It is, after all, a federal constitutional right.
But reciprocity is even nuttier in its implementation: We know of a man with a South Carolina concealed-carry permit who applied for an additional permit in New Hampshire last year — because the New England state is reciprocal with Georgia, while South Carolina is not.
So, as a matter of convenience, to carry in Georgia he went knocking on New Hampshire’s regulatory door.
That’s the state of gun laws in 2016 America. And it’s just beyond absurd.
In fact, North Augusta state Rep. Bill Hixon reports that it’s the top issue his constituents bring up to him.
Moreover, as Rep. Bill Taylor, R-Aiken, notes, the ludicrous laws make lawbreakers out of otherwise law-abiding citizens who have cause to cross state lines for business or pleasure and who may forget to accommodate the other state’s law.
It’s time to stop this insane patchwork of concealed-carry laws — if not nationally, then locally.
Rep. Hixon introduced a law last year making South Carolina reciprocal with both Georgia and North Carolina. It passed the House easily, 101-5, but got bogged down in the state Senate.
Earlier this month, Hixon asked South Carolinians who border either state to contact their sheriffs and urge them not to block reciprocity. The state Sheriff’s Association has opposed it — even though both South Carolina and Georgia are already reciprocal with most of the other states in the country. It’s as if the two states were isolating each other for an embargo.
Also muddying the water is a competing proposal in South Carolina that would eliminate gun permits altogether. That admittedly dicier prospect should make Hixon’s more modest proposal for mere reciprocity with Georgia and North Carolina more palatable.
We got off easily in our North Augusta near-encounter. But in Columbus, Ohio, recently, a machete-wielding man entered a deli and hacked four people, before being chased out by a bat-wielding employee and a customer throwing chairs.
Surely in a similar circumstance we would want more of a defense than that. We should at least have a right to it.
No matter where we live or choose to eat lunch.
