Can a flyer at Midlands pawn shops reduce shootings? Richland sheriff, shops hope so
A flyer placed on a pawn shop’s gun display case is the newest idea to reduce rising gun violence in Richland County.
“This right here,” Sheriff Leon Lott said while waving a flyer during a news conference Wednesday afternoon, “may save a life.” The news conference was held at People’s Pawn Shop on Assembly Street.
The flyer, which lists six gun safety tips, is one piece of a gun violence solution that Lott and other police leaders have been pushing for a year — community involvement to reduce shootings.
Anyone buying a gun at a locally owned Richland County pawn shop will get the flyer. Any customer strolling through shops could pick up the flyer as well. Already federal law requires gun sellers to give buyers a gunlock at the time of purchase.
Blayd Fins, owner of People’s Pawn, said the flyer will “make things better in the community.”
Fins said he and other pawn shop owners have customers buying guns who don’t know how to secure them. It’s common to have someone who recently purchased a gun to call the shop asking for the weapon’s serial number because the gun was stolen within days or weeks, Fins said.
“It important to secure guns as soon as you get home,” Fins said.
Lott was quick to give credit to Fins for coming up with the flyer idea and said that other organizations are asking for flyers to distribute. The sheriff’s department also hopes to get the flyers into schools for students to take home to their parents.
A video of a deputy explaining the gun safety measures on the flyer will also be distributed in schools and other places, Lott said.
Owners of 11 pawn shops were at the news conference to announce the flyer distribution plan. Those included Palmetto Gold and Pawn, Quick Cash, Pawn It Fast, Bonded Loan Office and Best Deal Pawn and Gun.
Shootings have devastated Richland County. From 2020 to 2021, shootings increased nearly 30% in the county, according to police data. In unincorporated Richland County, murder cases by gunfire doubled in 2021 compared to the previous year.
Stolen guns factor into shootings and murder cases in Richland County. In December, The State reported that an increase in stolen guns from 2017 to 2021 came with a rise of shootings, along with a black market to peddle the pilfered firearms.
In the story, The State tracked one gun that was stolen or illegally traded. The gun had been used in six separate shootings from Rock Hill to Richland County, including two that killed two teenagers, one a mother to a one-month-old baby.
Lott and Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook have implored communities to work with police to get known shooters off the streets. They’ve also appealed to parents to be keep their kids away from guns.
Over and over again, the two have begged people to stop leaving guns in cars, where they are easily stolen.
In efforts to reduce shootings, the Columbia Police Department has focused on seizing stolen and illegally owned guns as well as arresting people with previous felony convictions who are carrying guns.
Lott and Holbrook, along with other Midlands police leaders, came together in early February with the Richland County Recreation Commission to develop ways the commission could help in combating gun violence.
In Columbia, which doesn’t include unincorporated Richland County, 18 people have been shot and two have died this year. One of those shootings happened at an apartment complex popular with college students. A gunman shot five people, killing 20-year-old Jamaica Dowling.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 3:27 PM.