Editorials from across South Carolina: background checks, sports etiquette, highway safety
Background checks
South Carolina lawmakers believe that background checks can save lives.
At least that’s the message they sent this year in passing a new law requiring licensed real estate agents to undergo a background check before working in the state.
It’s also the main idea behind a bill waiting in the Senate for the next legislative year to start that would require background checks for all state-licensed workers, including psychologists, massage therapists and cosmetologists, among others.
Both bills followed the recent conviction of Todd Kohlhepp, who killed seven people over a 13-year period while working as a real estate agent in upstate South Carolina.
Mr. Kohlhepp, a registered sex offender, had previously served 14 years in prison for kidnapping and sexual assault in Arizona, which would have disqualified him from a state real estate license had anyone been required to look into his past.
Legislators have been unwilling to more strictly apply their own background check logic to a class of people for whom it would seem particularly prudent — gun buyers.
But so far, state legislators have been unwilling to more strictly apply their own background check logic to a class of people for whom it would seem particularly prudent — gun buyers.
Two years after a white supremacist murdered nine black men and women in the Emanuel AME church, lawmakers have yet to close the so-called Charleston loophole that helped Dylann Roof acquire a deadly weapon despite the fact that he should have been disqualified over a pending drug charge.
A bill currently stalled in the Statehouse would expand the three-day maximum wait period for background checks to thoroughly vet the exceedingly rare cases in which investigators need more than 72 hours to determine whether or not a gun purchase can proceed.
Poor sportsmanship
If you’ve been to a youth sporting event recently, you know there are times when parents and other adults behave badly. When a call doesn’t go in little Johnny or Suzy’s favor, all sorts of expletives are hurled in the direction of the referee.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder that officials at the South Carolina Youth Soccer Association have called for “Silent September” at all SCYSA-sponsored games. The heckling and poor behavior have hurt the league’s ability to retain referees, officials say.
There will be no “cheering or jeering,” officials wrote in a memo about the new rule. A first offense will result in a referee asking the coach to counsel the offender. On the second offense, the coach will be told — not asked — to counsel the offending party. If it comes down to a third offense, three strikes as it were, the offender is out of there. And if the person doesn’t leave on his own, or if the coach refuses to insist on the person leaving, the coach will be booted from the game. The game will be halted if another adult doesn’t step in and coach.
Indeed, it’s a sad state of affairs when parents and other adults have to be told how to behave in front of children.…
In sports, as in life, there are always going to be a few bad actors. It doesn’t seem fair to punish all fans for the behavior of a few.
Parents will do well to realize that children don’t often do what they hear, but what they see.
Highway safety
As of the Fourth, 495 people have died on South Carolina highways, compared to 504 at the same time in 2016.
Though down slightly, the number of deaths represents a continuing increase over three years ago. South Carolina seemingly cannot find a way to make substantial reductions in the number of people we lose on the roads.
SCOPPE: The secret to cutting our high highway death rate
(Highway Patrol Commander Christopher) Williamson is not accepting that.
In an interview with The State newspaper of Columbia, he said, “We want to make sure we save people’s lives on the highways.”…
That is what we hope he will continue to do by using his position as commander to stress the Highway Patrol’s important enforcement and education missions in ending the cycle of death on the highways.
It is as the state campaign tells the people of South Carolina: No deaths on the highways are acceptable.