Editorial: SC House makes one right call on criminals’ gun rights; time for one more

THE GOOD NEWS out of the Legislature is that the House abandoned a plan that would have let batterers keep their guns even after being convicted. After weeks of hand-wringing brought on by what many readily admitted was fear, the House overwhelmingly agreed on Tuesday to add a provision to its domestic-violence bill that would allow judges to make batterers give up their guns temporarily as a part of their sentence.

The legislation has several other provisions that are at least as important to combating South Carolina’s domestic-violence epidemic. Like a Senate-passed bill, H.3433 splits domestic-violence charges into multiple degrees, increases penalties and sets those penalties based on both the seriousness of the crime and the number of previous convictions. Unlike the Senate bill, it adds a domestic-violence unit to high school health classes and creates a state panel to review domestic-violence cases to find patterns and recommend better policies and laws.

But until Tuesday, the bill did not require — or even allow — state judges to make abusers give up their guns as part of their sentence.

When you think about it, it’s pretty astounding that this would be controversial. For that matter, it’s pretty astounding that it’s not already the law. A batterer doesn’t get to take his gun with him when the police haul him off to jail. Why shouldn’t he lose his right to keep a gun for a few years after he’s convicted of trying to kill (or succeeding in killing) his spouse? Just like you lose your right to vote for a while after you’re convicted of certain crimes. (Federal law requires batterers to give up their guns, but state officials don’t enforce federal laws.)

Some House members were afraid that adding the gun provision would shave off enough support to doom the rest of the bill. Others were afraid of being defeated in a Republican primary by people who have such a distorted understanding of the Second Amendment that they think its guarantees do not have to be balanced against other rights, and that they can’t even be suspended as the result of a criminal conviction.

Obviously, some of those fears were eased by the fact that only three members of the GOP-controlled Senate voted against a similar provision in the Senate bill. Perhaps just as importantly, although a lot of fringe groups have been protesting very loudly, the National Rifle Association — the preeminent defender, for decades, of Second Amendment rights — took no position on that provision. We assume that’s because the NRA believes what it has always said: That it’s fighting for the rights of law-abiding citizens, not of thugs.

The House might want to keep that principle in mind as it takes up H.3025, which would allow out-of-state visitors to carry concealed weapons even if they can’t pass a criminal background check. Supporters say they want to make it possible for law-abiding South Carolinians to carry their concealed weapons when they travel to other states, so they need to let residents of those other states carry their guns here.

What they don’t say is why we don’t allow people from just any state to carry concealed weapons: Most states are much more liberal than South Carolina, handing out concealed-weapons permits with practically no requirements. The bill repeals the law that says South Carolina can enter into reciprocal agreement with another state only if that state “requires an applicant to successfully pass a criminal background check and a course in firearm training and safety.”

In other words, out-of-staters would be held to a lower standard than South Carolinians. And it’s not an onerous standard to start with. What kind of sense does that make?

This story was originally published April 14, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Editorial: SC House makes one right call on criminals’ gun rights; time for one more."