Bills to close the ‘Charleston Loophole’ stall, while permitless carry advances

For a second year in a row, the S.C. Legislature failed to extend the waiting period needed for firearm purchases – a key issue that emerged among gun reform proponents after the slaying of nine parishioners at a Charleston church by an avowed white supremacist.

Bills to address the so-called ‘Charleston Loophole’ were introduced with some fanfare earlier this session, because they were sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats. But on Tuesday, two of those bills died unceremoniously for the year, when a Senate panel spent the majority of its hour-long meeting on different proposals.

Sen. Marlon Kimpson, D-Charleston, expressed frustration with the meeting’s progress, noting that Tuesday marked the last Senate judiciary hearing of the session.

“I thought that we could have either carried over those bankruptcy bills or have a briefer discussion,” Kimpson said. “We’ve got to limit debate particularly to the effect that it becomes duplicative, but I wasn’t chairman, so I wasn’t certainly in a position to do that.”

The bill Kimpson sponsored – along with Sen. Greg Gregory, R-Lancaster – would have shortened the time given to court officials to record criminal information in a database that is used to check whether a person can legally purchase a firearm. It also would have expanded the background check waiting period for purchasing a firearm from three to five days.

The bill also called for the creation of a panel of solicitors, judges and prosecutors that would have worked together during a two-year period to help “clean up” the state’s database by ensuring that reports are substantive and timely. Once that is complete, the waiting period for a background check would have reverted back to three days.

Though Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, said he was in favor of improving the database, he said extending the waiting period to five days was not enough. Malloy authored the second bill that was on the calendar but was not discussed Tuesday. It aimed to expand the background check waiting period to 28 days.

“The time issue I have a problem with, because I don’t think there’s a difference between three and five (days),” Malloy said.

Both bills were the result of a traveling Senate panel that visited four areas of the state in 2016 to seek public input on how to reform the state’s gun laws without infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Resigned to the fact that he’ll have to wait until next year to address the Charleston Loophole, Kimpson made a promise to those who support the permitless carry bill that advanced a Senate panel later in they day.

“They will have to wait until next year as well, if I have anything to do with it,” said Kimpson of the bills potential progress.

Kimpson serves on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, the panel that will next discuss that chamber’s bill that calls for allowing the carrying of firearms without a permit. The “SC Constitutional Carry Act of 2017” cleared its first panel on Tuesday on a three to one vote.

It’s the beginning step for the bill, which still has to clear Senate Judiciary and both chambers before becoming law. It’s also a different bill than the Constitutional Carry the House has already passed but continues to languish at the committee level in the Senate.

Both proponents and gun reform supporters attended that hearing, at times getting testy and somewhat combative with the panel’s members. Among the bill’s proponents was John Lane, of Lake Wylie, who said he was not OK with having to ask for permission from legislators to exercise a right.

“(A) legal, law-abiding citizen and legally allowed to own and purchase a firearm should be able to carry in a way that they deem fit and necessary,” Lane said.

The bill’s advancement was a disappointment – particularly at the heels of the stalling of the loophole-related bill – for Sylvie Dessau, a local volunteer with Moms Demand Action, an organization that calls for “common-sense legislation” to address gun violence.

“Moms volunteers will continue to work for a safer South Carolina,” Dessau said. “There is room for the Second Amendment and also common sense gun laws.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Bills to close the ‘Charleston Loophole’ stall, while permitless carry advances."