Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

Outdoor Life:

In today’s world of high-capacity, polymer-frame, semi-auto pistols, we often forget about the original repeating handgun. While the roots of the revolver go back to the revolving arquebus, produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597, it wasn’t until 1836 that Sam Colt figured out how to make it work reliably. Once Colt started making revolvers, the world of repeating handguns changed forever.

Whether you’re in the field hunting, hiking, or exploring, or in any wilderness setting, the revolver is the top choice in a handgun. For personal defense, the double-action revolver may be a bit less popular nowadays, but it’s every bit as good a choice as it ever was.

I agree.  I have one concealed carry revolver, and two that are too big to conceal, requiring open carry.  I carry my small wheel gun regularly.  And while we’re on the subject of revolvers again, Lucky Gunner has a nice article on testing the Ruger GP100.  I love mine.  But that’s not what caught my eye.  While reading the Outdoor Life piece on carry revolvers, I noticed one I missed from two years ago that has some remarkable anecdotal data.

Even here in Alaska, where you’d think we would have the “bear sidearm” thing figured out, all you have to do is mention bear protection in a crowded place or online forum, and you will no doubt hear from numerous people who swear on their mother’s grave that their .44 mag, .454, .500, or other monster caliber is the ideal bear protection. I have however, only heard one claim myself of someone stopping a grizzly with one shot from a .460. The bigger-is-better idea is rapidly going the way of the buffalo, and here’s why.

I’ll say this very clearly. No handgun has the energy to drop a bear in its tracks (barring a perfect, or extremely lucky shot). Even the .500 S&W has little more energy than a .30-30. If you read John Snow’s blog last week, you saw a scientific comparison of several autoloading cartridges and the conclusions that the FBI drew from it. Yes, the bigger cartridges do slightly more damage than a .45 ACP, but we are talking about animals that can sometimes soak up .375 H&H rounds like they are BB’s. I’ve personally witnessed a brown bear take 13 solid shots from less than 20 yards with a .375 Ackley before it expired. I have seen black bears shot at under 15 yards with .338’s and 7mm Mag’s and not even lose their footing. The handgun is a last resort, slightly better than nothing. Never, EVER rely on a handgun as your primary defense if you know you are going to be in a risky situation. Take a large rifle you are comfortable with, or a shotgun.

[ … ]

I think that with a heavy wheelgun, you will get one shot off if you are lucky. If you’re wondering how you would do, next time you are at the range, see how many hits you can get on a 15” x 20” target at 15 feet in 3 seconds (including drawing from your carry holster). You probably won’t have much more time than that in the field, and possibly less.

Select your backcountry sidearm wisely, and be safe out there!

Okay, I hear you loud and clear.  But it’s still the case that soon after firearms were declared legal in national parks a man defended his life from a grizzly in Denali National Par using a .45 ACP handgun.  I always want more rather than less, but I’ll take what I’ve got and try to aim well if this situation ever presents itself.  I’m not sure that anyone can ever be truly prepared for an attack like this save doing it all of the time.

Ned Weatherby:

Wouldn’t surprise me if the “didn’t know” was true – but averting one’s eyes to avoid learning the truth in this political climate is BS.

However, I truly wonder how many of the people now bitching at various gun friendly websites about RRA & SA don’t do crap for gun rights, other than maybe being an NRA member – if that.

Here in AZ, the Arizona Citizens Defense League has only around 2000 members, and yet, AZCDL and its handful of members are responsible for most of the pro-rights laws passed the last few years in AZ. http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html

So few do the heavy lifting. Sorry folks, but “activism” like not buying a RRA product is just keyboard commando posing horsecrap.

I see posts often on various websites from state-run gun rights organizations asking for help. How many of the “activists” who now won’t buy that new SA gun can’t even be bothered to follow a link and send the pre-prepared letters for their own state – much less join?

How many Illinois gun owners didn’t do squat about this issue, and are now bitching because some scumbag lobbyist also took “no position?”

I spend an awful lot of time perusing articles, watching the forum posts, sending letters my readers never see, and writing for you to take the information and act on it.  I hope you do that rather than just read my posts.  Sending these links around pushes traffic and empowers the whole community.  But this takes a powerful lot of time.  I’m not complaining, it’s a labor of love.  But everyone has to do their part.

I’ll would certainly buy again from Rock River Arms.  There’s a sweet 6.5 Creedmoor rifle they have up on their web site I’d like to have.  It’s a bit too pricey for me right now, but after a couple of years of bonuses from work, perhaps it will be my next purchase.

I encourage you to make your feelings known to Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms.  They’ve given you the avenue to do that.  If they didn’t want to hear from you they wouldn’t have given you the chance to tell them what’s on your mind.

As to perfection in the gun rights community, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  Consider Ned’s questions.

The State:

A Senate bill that would clear the way for carrying firearms in South Carolina without a permit advanced from a panel on Tuesday with fewer than five days remaining in the legislative calendar.

It’s the beginning step for the bill that was first discussed in mid April. The bill – whose author is Sen. Shane Martin, R-Spartanburg – is different than one the House bill has already passed.

[ … ]

Like the House version, the Senate bill allows those who are legally permitted to own, carry or purchase a firearm to do so without having to obtain a permit. “Open carry,” which allows for a person to carry a firearm exposed on their person, also would be permitted …

As of Tuesday, however, there were no plans to schedule another hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the last week of session, which is the panel where the bill is headed to next.

The bill, however, does not die; 2017 is the first half of a two-year session. When legislators return in January, they will be able to continue discussing the bill with the progress that has already been made.

I consider it a minor to moderate failure for this bill to sit stagnated while the legislators go home.  We lose momentum, and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that they couldn’t have come to terms with the House and passed a bill to send to the governor’s desk this week.

The upshot, however, is that I was worried about whether the rapidity of this would prevent us from addressing the South Carolina state senators one by one in order to do what we can to ensure success.  Now we don’t have that problem.  We have time to single out the senators with directed and focused communications.  Sitting stagnated but in process is better than having completely died or being rejected by the senate.

I hate that the legislators are going home, but we can pick this up again and make it clear to the senators that they have to do this first thing.  They need to move apace on this.  So says we, the free citizens and men of good will everywhere.

David Reeder at Breach-Bang-Clear:

“I’d rather just come on out and get it out there. There’s nothing more to say about it. I came into the Marines as an intel guy, started working at the NSA, and got some deployments out of it. The deployments were national intelligence teams [three letter agencies, ed]. That’s all true. But I was never Recon. Someone called me out on it, and I copped to it. It’s nothing I didn’t bring to my own doorstep. I could easily have shut it down, and I didn’t. It’s a lie I’ve been living for twenty years.

This is a soul cleanse for me after looking over my shoulder all this time.

I apologize to the community, to everyone for misrepresenting myself. I don’t ask or expect forgiveness. I can’t make up for what I did, but I can try to atone for it.”

So let me get this straight.  Someone called you out on it, or otherwise you would have kept living with that false impression from your students and followers?

Okay, perhaps I’m being to harsh here.  Nathan had to point at David too, and say “Thou art the one.”  David engaged in true repentance at that point.  I don’t regularly follow Mr. Lamb so I have no dog in this fight.  I hope he benefits from this experience.  But I have this to say to him.  You do not atone for your own sins.  Only the sacrifice of Jesus does that, and if you have no savior, you aren’t saved.  It’s that simple.

Here is the thing, though.  It just isn’t necessary to embellish CVs like that.  I learn from people when I can, and when I can’t, I don’t.  I really couldn’t care less about their CV.  The question is always for me, “Is what they’re teaching valuable and meaningful for me, and am I physically capable of implementing and practicing it?”  If yes, then I try to learn from it.  If not, then I ignore it without any malice at all.

There is no shame in not being a recon Marine.  My son Daniel wasn’t a recon Marine.  He was an infantry Marine who saw heavy combat in Fallujah in 2007, earning the CAR.  He was a SAW gunner, and a designated marksman for his platoon.  He went through all of the shooting and sighting training that the Scout Snipers go through, but he told me he had no desire whatsoever to take the rest of the training and testing, i.e., stalking, egress, etc.

He also had no desire whatsoever to run everywhere, which is what the recon Marines had to do to be able to achieve a perfect score on their PT.  Mr. Lamb didn’t have to embellish his CV (or perhaps he did if Magpul would not have hired him, possibly leading to more difficulty in building his brand).  I don’t know what the future would have held for him had he killed this perception at the outset rather than live with it.

In the end, when you get enough years under your belt in your own line of work, you know you are the craftsman, expert and mentor when the kids come to you for mentoring, being able to choose anyone they want.  It is that choice that is confirmation of your life’s work, not your CV.

The initial reactions by Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms had convinced me that they didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation for their business.  This is similar, and even more troubling because of the power of these manufacturers, to the situation with Jerry Tsai and Recoil magazine.  Jerry lost his job over that.

Rock River Arms has an updated statement, released May 2, 2017, and it is shown below in full.  I think this begins to show wisdom from RRA over the “abandonment” to which they refer.

For immediate release:

May 2, 2017

After further review, Rock River Arms, Inc.® (RRA) is immediately severing all ties with the Illinois Firearms Manufacturers Association (IFMA).

We feel that IFMA’s integrity is compromised and we will not be a part of the organization. We trusted that contributions and resources provided to IFMA by RRA were being used to promote and uphold our 2nd Amendment values. IFMA’s actions have destroyed that trust.

For more than twenty years, RRA has actively opposed gun control legislation at the local, state, and federal levels. We have supported and provided monetary and product donations to multiple pro-gun organizations including NRA, NSSF, ISRA and countless others. We have attended rallies and spoken at educational events on be half of gun owners’ rights. Our employees have collect ed signatures, written letters and e-mails, called legislators’ offices, as well as attended events, meetings and hearings in Springfield, Illinois.

What we learned, however, was that we are better at manufacturing firearms and accessories than playing political games at the state capitol. So, we began to utilize the services of lobbyists, first through other organizations and then in 2009, we partnered with several other manufacturers to form IFMA.

Prior to our further review, we believed that the organization had accurately represented us. We feel that IFMA’s actions have compromised its integrity. While their actions may be standard practices at the capitol, backdoor politics and convoluted deal-making are counter to the way we do business and lead our lives.

I sincerely apologize for my lack of direct engagement in IFMA’s governance and subsequent actions, as well as the abandonment gun owners are feeling.

If you have any questions regarding, or need more information about, this statement or RRA’s position, please contact:

Sarah Larson, RRA General Manager at 309-792-5780.

Thank you,

Chuck Larson

President/Owner

Rock River Arms

Via Codrea, I learned about the recent IFMA FFL and firearms manufacturers licensing scheme, which basically does the following.

Earlier today, the Illinois State Senate passed bill SB-1657 by a one-vote margin. While its prospects are still unsure in the House, if signed by Governor Bruce Rauner, the new law will mandate state licensing for all Illinois gun dealers. It will also restrict all others in Illinois to nine firearm transfers per year.

The lobbyist for the Illinois FirearmsManufacturers Association (IFMA), Jay Keller, traded that group’s opposition to the bill in exchange for a carve-out, removing Prairie State firearms manufacturers from the licensing requirements.

Two companies provide the bulk of the funding for IFMA: Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms.

To be clear, the original version of SB-1657 did not exempt manufacturers from the licensing regulations. At the time, Jay Keller and IFMA opposed it.

At a March Senate hearing, however, Keller stated that IFMA would drop its opposition to SB-1657 and go neutral if legislators gave the state’s gun makers a pass. State Senator Don Harmon delivered on his end of the deal with an amendment exempting big box stores and manufacturers from this scheme.

With that amendment, IFMA dropped its opposition to the bill,going neutral on the witness slip. That serves as a very public position on a bill in Illinois politics.

Perhaps this is the whole story.  Or perhaps not.  From here it gets really confusing, with the Springfield Armory statement as follows.

Springfield Armory has always fought hand-in-hand with the NRA, NSSF, ISRA and many others for legislation that fiercely protects the Second Amendment, individual rights and the industry as a whole. Our fight continues today as some members of the Illinois legislature are pushing to overregulate the industry through Gun Dealer Licensing Act (SB1657).

“At the time of my initial statement to the media, I was ill-informed of the ramifications of this bill and its detrimental effects to the Second Amendment, which I have personally fought to protect my entire life. I can tell you now, we at Springfield Armory are unequivocally 100 percent against this bill and will continue to work with the NRA and others to ensure that it is defeated,” said Dennis Reese, Chief Executive Officer, Springfield Armory.

Springfield Armory, like Rock River Arms, was not aware of the actions taken by our trade association, IFMA, until after the fact. We take this situation very seriously and are looking into how this very unfortunate lapse in communication occurred.

Springfield Armory has fought and defeated legislation like this in Illinois for the past 15 years. We are wholeheartedly against this bill and will fight to see it defeated as the unnecessary and harmful overreach that it is.

Rock River Arms has responded thusly (so far).

RRA Moderator
Posted: Yesterday 4:38:04 PM EDT [Last Edit: Yesterday 4:43:02 PM EDT by RRAMODERATOR] RRA’s owner is at NRAAM in Atlanta, where he is meeting with a number of people about this. While many of the necessary people are in Atlanta, some are not which is complicating things. RRA has been opposed to this bill (and earlier bills prior to it for more than a decade) and is still in 100% opposition to it. Both our exemption and the change in our lobbyist’s position from “opposed” to “no position” were surprises to us. We found out after many of you, and have been trying to make sense of it since. A statement will be forthcoming as soon as it is possible to make one that is accurate and complete. It may still come out today. Thank you all for your consideration and to the many who have been willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. Steve/RRA

Perhaps the lobbyist for the IFMA acted on his own.  Or perhaps not.  We need to know the truth about this, as customers and their loyalty, and the health of two very good companies, and the lives of their workers, hang in the balance.

Look, I’ve got it.  Every company worries over things like a well-trained work force, retention of good employees, and forcing workers to relocate to far-away states which are much more gun friendly, leaving behind extended family, perhaps some with dependent care issues.  This is an absolutely sordid situation to be faced with.

On the other hand, some companies have relocated, such as Magpul and Remington.  Customers have rewarded Magpul, and the Remington plant in Alabama is reported to be doing very well.  Customers punished Smith & Wesson for their fornication with Bill Clinton and the gun controllers years ago, and with the situation as it is today, if this occurred again I seriously doubt Smith & Wesson would recover as it has.

Ruger makes fine revolvers and so we don’t need S&W if they were to go out of business, everyone makes a polymer pistol (so the M&P isn’t an absolute necessity), and many more manufacturers are making 1911s (although buyer beware, it’s much harder to make a quality 1911 than a plastic double stack gun).  There are too many AR-15 manufacturers to count now, with quality makers such as Daniel Defense, LaRue Tactical, Knight’s Armament, and Head Down.

I am a huge fan of RRA as readers know.  But if RRA and Springfield Armory were complicit in passing this legislation, they will suffer from it.  RRA distributors will stop asking for delivery and prices will plummet, although I expect RRA to survive.  If Springfield participated in support of this bill (or lack of opposition to it), I expect them to fold their tents.  They will not survive.  They don’t make anything unique enough to survive in the face of the competition.

I hate this for both RRA and Springfield, but you just simply cannot jump in bed with the controllers and be forgiven by the customers.  Gun owners won’t tolerate it – if you doubt what I’m saying, read the comments to this reddit/r/firearms thread.  If there is more to this story than we see, RRA and Springfield need to come clean and address the issues forthrightly – immediately.

UPDATE from RRA concerning IFMA.

The State:

A bill that supporters argue would strengthen Second Amendment rights could be a disaster for the image of the Grand Strand, officials in multiple jurisdictions said.

On Tuesday, Myrtle Beach Police Chief Warren Gall said a measure under consideration in the general assembly could make law enforcement’s job more difficult, because it would be legal to carry a weapon openly as long as a user doesn’t intend to use it for an unlawful purpose. But police can only prove someone intended to use a gun unlawfully after a crime has occurred, he said.

The bill, which has passed the S.C. House of Representatives and moved to the Senate, does not require a permit for open carry.

“I don’t think they’re going to pass it this year. But imagine walking down Ocean Boulevard on Easter weekend, Fourth of July weekend, Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, and everybody down there is carrying a pistol on their side because they can,” Gall said.

Myrtle Beach has recently seen a string of shootings, many in the downtown area near or on Ocean Boulevard. Officials are grappling with multiple ways to calm the atmosphere there, but Councilwoman Mary Jeffcoat said controlling the flow of firearms could be an impossible task for local police.

“I don’t know how many people in town have guns,” she said Tuesday. “I don’t know if we’ve even guessed how many people have guns, but I bet it’s a lot of them. I’m surprised we don’t have more shootings on weekends.”

[ … ]

Chief Joseph Hill of the Horry County Police Department previously worked in Virginia, which allows open carry. He said that he hadn’t seen issues with it there, but said in his personal opinion, a proliferation of guns in public could run counter to the intended brand of the Myrtle Beach area — a family friendly resort town.

“Where are you gonna strap it when you’re in your flip flops and your shorts on the beach?” Hill asked.

“I don’t think it will work here,” he said. “I don’t have any personal objections to it other than it doesn’t fit the culture of Myrtle Beach.”

Myrtle Beach Police Chief Warren Gall may know something we don’t.  We already know how weak-kneed the South Carolina legislators are, but perhaps the chief knows something about stalling tactics.  The authors of the article let that pregnant line of questioning slip away from them.

Here’s another pregnant line of questioning.  If Chief Joseph Hill of the Horry County Police Department has worked in Virginia before, which is an open carry state, and which also has beaches, then why can’t it work at another beach like Myrtle Beach, S.C.?  And for that matter, if North Carolina is a “gold star” traditional open carry state, also with magnificent beaches like Emerald Isle and the Outer Banks, what the hell is Hill talking about?

What image are they trying to protect if crime is rampant in Myrtle Beach anyway?  Hey, if you want to handle crime in that area, why don’t y’all target those thousands of homeless, drug addled beach dwellers in between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach?  Yea, you know the ones I’m talking about, don’t you?  The ones who live just off the beach in makeshift shanties and card board boxes.

Your dirty little secret – the one you try to hide from all those Canadians and Northerners who come down to S.C. for some fun and frolic in the beach.  That is, during the times when High School students aren’t going to the beach to get inebriated and have sex with each other in hotel rooms their parents know nothing about.

Hey South Carolina LEOs!  You don’t have room to tell me anything about open carry and image.  Go fix your own damn problems and leave my rights alone.  And authors Chloe Johnson and Elizabeth Townsend, do a better job of pushing the envelope with your writing.  Why don’t you ask the hard questions?

Roger J.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
From ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, Part I, Chapter 1, ‘Arrest’:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the down-stairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”

Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney

The Post And Courier:

Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen wants to stop the General Assembly from enacting a law that would allow gun owners to carry their guns concealed or openly without having to get a permit, and he’s enlisted area residents to help him get the job done.

[ … ]

Mullen says the law would make it more difficult for law enforcement employees to do their jobs since they wouldn’t be able to question people only for openly carrying their weapons.

“People are going to be calling us and wanting us to intervene, and we’re going to have to tell them because of the law, we’re not able to do that,” he said …

“At least we know when were dealing with a concealed-weapons carrier, they’ve gone through a background check and gone through training,” he said. “And it creates another opportunity for small situations, verbal altercations or minor disagreements, to lead to serious injuries or even death.”

Dramatic, yes?  Altercations, even death!  The problem is that he’s lying.  As a long time resident of a “Gold Star” traditional open carry state, I know that nothing of the sort happens.  And chief Mullen knows all of this too, but like LEOs everywhere, he wants to maintain control and the revenue stream that comes from gun permitting.  Mullen shouldn’t look at it as if he isn’t “able to intervene.”  He should look at it as an opportunity to educate the public on the rights of citizens of South Carolina.  He would rather intervene, since he is an old school collectivist.

Next up, Alabama LEOs.

Treadaway said an example of how the permit requirement is an important tool for law enforcement came last week when Birmingham police stopped a pickup with no headlights on. The officers noticed an AR-15 on the back seat, which was not illegal, Treadaway said. The driver admitted to having a pistol in the truck and did not have a permit for it.

That led to his arrest and a search of the truck, which turned up two pipe bombs and illegal drugs, Treadaway said.

“That’s a prime example that if this law passed, the concerns of law enforcement is that tool would be taken away,” Treadaway said.

It all sounds so dramatic, yes?  Except it wasn’t the lack of a permit that tipped the LEOs off to something else in the automobile, it was the willingness of the perpetrator to confess on the spot that he had a pistol in the truck.  Actually, if he had run his headlights, he never would have been stopped to begin with, so none of this has anything to do with permitting or open carry.

You can take it as an article of faith, that when asked about constitutional carry, LEOs everywhere will come up with the most dramatic excuses for why it’s a bad thing and will lead to blood in the streets and difficulty to maintain law and order.

Except that the history of open carry states shows that they’re lying every time.  So why ask them at all?  Ignore the LEOs when considering the rights of citizens.  After all, they aren’t constitutional scholars.

WCSC:

CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) – A Lowcountry police department has formally taken a stance on a Senate bill which, if passed, would allow anyone who can legally purchase a gun to carry it in the state openly or concealed.

The Charleston Police Department tweeted an update on its Twitter account Monday night sharing the department’s opinion on Senate bill S. 449 reading in part:

“Please understand what this bill creates – the ability for anyone who can legally purchase a firearm, many who have not completed a background check to determine whether or not they are prohibited purchasers due to the location and manner of the transfer or received any type of training, to walk our streets and neighborhoods with a handgun on their hip, in a bag, or under their jacket without any review or training.”

This may be the most mangled use of the English language I’ve ever witnessed.  I’m still actually having trouble with it, but together we’ll try to parse it.

First of all, there is the issue of the choice of the word “ability.”  This is odd, and the department – whomever that is, perhaps the chief of police, perhaps his secretary, perhaps an attorney – may have meant “legality,” or “legal viability,” or “legal ability.”  Anyone who has the money has the ability to purchase virtually anything.  In other words, the lack of some sort of state approval means nothing whatsoever concerning whether a person can do something, only whether a person may do something under the law.

Second, if we can get past the word ability, the phrase “who can legally purchase a firearm” says more than they want it to say and destroys their argument (if you can call this an argument at all).  It’s problematic because they acquiesce to the notion that the user or owner of the firearm has obtained the firearm legally (via form 4473) by stipulating so in the prefatory remarks, and then demur by saying that the owner or user may not be a legal firearm owner because, and I quote, “many who (sic) have not completed a background check to determine whether or not they are prohibited purchasers due to the location and manner of the transfer or received any type of training …”

They should have said “many of whom.”  Actually, they shouldn’t have said anything at all.  This is yet another oddball statement.  A “prohibited purchaser” cannot legally purchase a firearm via form 4473 (not that I agree with federal gun laws, I’m just attempting to logically parse this screwed up statement).

Person-to-person transfers are still legal in South Carolina, requiring neither form 4473 nor CLEO approval, nothing about that changes with this bill, and what all of this has to do with constitutional versus permitted carry is not addressed in this confusing statement.  Presumably the chief was referring to the fact that the CLEO permitting process will not have been followed for carry of the firearm (purchase of a firearm doesn’t require CLEO approval, but carry of a firearm [legally] does require CLEO approval).

But that’s what this debate is all about.  No one is denying that the bill, if passed would annul the requirement for CLEO approval for permitting to carry.  That’s its virtue, not its cunning.  Additionally, someone may walk around with a gun in a pocket, bag, on their hip or under a jacket anyway without CLEO approval.  If it isn’t seen, LEOs wouldn’t have opportunity to stop them since all detainments must be a so-called “Terry Stop.”  CLEO approval isn’t stopping criminals from carrying weapons.

The title of the article says that the Charleston Police Department weighs in on open carry, but the objections so far have to do only with bypassing the CLEO process for concealed carry and weapons transfers.  So it’s possible that the author of the short article didn’t even understand the issue.  Or it’s possible that the article is mistitled since the proposed law both bypasses the CLEO permitting process and legalizes open carry at one time.

Perhaps the chief has taught his officers that if someone isn’t carrying openly, the person isn’t carrying at all.  But wait, open carry is still illegal in South Carolina, and I doubt that officers in his employ assume that criminals aren’t carrying firearms and only permitted carriers have weapons.  We are left to wonder if the chief cares to weigh in on open carry.  Then again, let’s hope not.  His statement might be even worse than this one.  At least if he does issue such a statement, he should take a grammar course first, and perhaps a suitable course in logic and rhetoric.

Prior:

Constitutional Carry Update In Alabama, Texas And South Carolina

Constitutional Carry Passes Alabama Senate, Setting Example For The South Carolina Senate

South Carolina Police And Lawmakers Are In A “Shootout” Over Carrying Guns

Laws Against Open Carry Are For The Purpose Of Shaming Gun Owners

South Carolina Senate Hearings For New Gun Laws