When Anti-Gunners Reach for Anything to Attack Gun Rights

There are exceptions to a great many gun control laws, but not for most of us. Those are usually for law enforcement officers or the military. When they’re performing their duties, that makes perfect sense, but most of those exceptions aren’t limited to just when they’re on the clock.

So, it’s more than a little bizarre for someone who has such an exception to then misuse their special status, only to be hoisted up as the poster boy for why gun rights should be further restricted.

Take South Carolina. An editorial out of the state just tried to make that case.

Like most cliches, there’s some truth to the one about the problem not being guns but rather bad people with guns. That applies not only to criminals, but also to irresponsible gun owners who are reckless … or easily triggered.

We refer, of course, to the incident at a June 23 Berkeley County Planning Commission meeting, in which Commissioner James Sineath dangerously overreacted to public opposition of a controversial proposal.

…

Mr. Sineath insists he didn’t unholster his gun, only raised his shirt to be prepared if someone charged the commission. “I’m there to try to protect myself as well as the other folks on the commission,” he said.

The editorial insists you can hear a round being chambered, but since most people who understand firearms carry with a round in the chamber, I find that claim unlikely. It’s not impossible, but unlikely.

Why did Sineath have a gun in a public meeting when the public can’t carry? It’s not because he’s a member of the planning commission. No, he was an “honorary special deputy,” which apparently made him exempt from certain restrictions because he was considered a law enforcement officer.

That status was stripped from him the next day following this incident. Fair enough.

Had this been the end of it, I wouldn’t be talking about it. Instead, we get crap like this:

Unlike many problems with guns in public, we can’t blame this on the state’s ironically named “constitutional carry” law, which clearly prohibits people from carrying guns into public meetings of government bodies. It does allow people to carry guns in many places where they shouldn’t — including state parks, crowded streets and in bars and restaurants that don’t post signs prohibiting it (either way, carriers are not supposed to drink while packing) — but not public meetings.

Even when South Carolina had more sensible gun laws, a constable or “special deputy” was allowed to carry only if a sheriff specifically allowed it. One former sheriff tells us that special deputies generally weren’t given gun privileges, and constables only if they took gun-training courses.

On one hand, credit for not blaming constitutional carry, but I fail to see how it’s ironically named. Then again, I’m not sure editorial writers are fully briefed on what actual irony is. I blame Alanis Morissette for that, really.

And just what problems with guns in public are we talking about here? I ask because whoever wrote this cites absolutely zero examples. It’s just a broad statement that the audience is expected to take as a matter of faith, but what I know is that following the Bruen decision, which ended subjective permitting standards and allowed more guns in the holsters of law-abiding citizens throughout the country, the homicide rate has plummeted like print media’s subscription numbers.

Still, it’s clear that we’re dealing with a person or people who really like gun control, who think the laws previously were “sensible” despite that whole “shall not be infringed” thing. Then again, they think listening to that, creating carry laws in accordance with that phrase, and calling it “constitutional carry” is ironic, so…

No, we don’t expect such a change from a Legislature that won’t even require people who carry guns in public to undergo criminal background checks or take courses that teach where they can or can’t carry a gun or, for that matter, when they can or can’t shoot people.

Even after Mr. Sineath’s behavior, the General Assembly almost certainly won’t touch the law, as any proposed change would provoke the wrath of the gun lobby.

But it’s what lawmakers ought to do.

No, it’s not.

The Second Amendment is federal law, and while lawmakers and the courts have a long and storied history of playing fast and loose with it, that’s not a justification to go back to the bad old ways of doing things in South Carolina, especially when it comes to armed citizens. 

Especially without an actual example of how things like constitutional carry are causing problems. You can’t just say it, assume everyone agrees, and call it a day. You’ve got to back that crap up with something.

Strangely, though, whoever wrote this then finished up with this little tidbit:

Since they won’t, it increases the responsibility all of us should feel to put a check on our own anti-social behavior in public. It also increases our responsibility to let our elected officials know we expect them to limit public outbursts — by, for instance, removing from office anyone who can’t control themselves, or can’t resist playing cowboy in public.

Now, without actually seeing the video that supposedly shows all these horrific things happening, I can’t say whether anyone was playing cowboy or not.

But I will say that, yeah, if people are carrying guns, you should definitely put a check on your own anti-social behavior. Robbery, rape, murder, mayhem, all of that is anti-social, and much of it warrants a justified use of force.

Essentially, whoever sat at the keyboard on this found a way to make “An armed society is a polite society” sound like a bad thing. 

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