“What are you guys protesting?” the stranger asked last Tuesday at our weekly protest in downtown Greenville, South Carolina.
“I’m not protesting anything,” I replied a bit defensively. “I am simply advising everyone they need to be vaccinated.” I was holding a protest sign I designed. One side said, 900,000 AMERICANS DIED FROM COVID. The other side said, ZERO DIED FROM COVID VACCINES. I knew 900,000 wasn’t the official count, but got this figure from an NPR report of the most probable estimate. (The official count is now just over 600,000.)
“So, you’re not the one protesting for gun control?”
“We’ll actually I am,” I admitted. “I made the sign the guy across the street is holding.” Across the street Ron was holding my sign. One side said MORE GUNS MORE DEATH. The other side read OPEN CARRY = OPEN CARNAGE.
I made the sign out of anger. And not just because of the senseless carnage in this country caused by the extreme proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the luncheon meeting after our weekly rally of couple of weeks ago, two of my Democratic colleagues who ran for office in this red state of South Carolina, and lost; were now proposing we start a PAC to support “moderate” candidates, whether Democratic or Republican, to offset the political power of the far right-wing extremists who dominate politics in our state. (They didn’t want political extremists on either side.) On that particular day, I felt bad. I wanted to speak out and say this didn’t sound like a good idea, but at the time I didn’t have the fire in my belly to dispute well-intentioned ideas promoted by personal friends I admired and respected.
The next thing I knew, one of them was saying the new proposal for open carry of firearms in South Carolina wasn’t as bad as it sounds. “When some Democrats hear Open Carry, they immediately cringe and think it’s a bad idea.” That was too much. I spoke up.
“I am one of those Democratic ‘extremists’ who cringe at the idea of Open Carry. What you might call a left-wing extremist, I call a progressive Democrat. Like you guys, I ran for office and lost. Losing sucks, but I literally put my money where my mouth is. I spoke out for sensible gun control then, and I intend to continue to speak out for it now. What is the point of running for office, it we compromise our stand on the issues?”
By the next Tell Them Tuesday meeting, I had made my new sign saying Open Carry is equivalent to open carnage. The two who advocated for a moderate PAC weren’t there to see the sign. But one young man who walked by, shook his head and said, “There is no open carry law in South Carolina.”
That was two weeks ago. Today it’s the law.
I wish I was talking about open carry for beer. Sadly, the conservative South is obsessed with guns. In the words of Governor McMaster:
Today, I signed the Open Carry with Training Act into law! I will proudly support any legislation that protects or enhances a South Carolinian’s ability to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights, and that’s exactly what this bill does. Here’s what this means for you:
H.3094 OPEN CARRY WITH TRAINING ACT
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
- MAKES SOUTH CAROLINA A SECOND AMENDMENT SANCTUARY STATE.
- ELIMINATES THE $50 PERMIT FEE FOR A CONCEALABLE WEAPON PERMIT.
- CONCEALED WEAPON PERMIT HOLDERS CAN OPENLY CARRY A CONCEALABLE WEAPON ON THEM OR IN THEIR MOTOR VEHICLE UNLESS THERE IS SIGNAGE EXPLICITY STATING OTHERWISE.
- LAW GOES INTO EFFECT 90 DAYS FROM TODAY
GOVERNOR
HENRY MCMASTER
The South Carolina Governor is a McMoron. Like so many Republican politicians his only goal is to preserve his own personal political power, and his political strategy is to simply tilt further to the extreme right than anyone else. The South Carolina State Motto is, “Where there is life, there’s hope.” (Dum Spiro Spero). Considering how many laws have been passed in South Carolina that endanger people’s lives, perhaps we should change our motto to, “We are hopelessly dumb.”
I have railed against McMaster’s litany of sins in previous posts, including his failure to adequately address the pandemic in South Carolina. Even when he did close down bars and restaurants and other non-essential businesses, he made an exception for gun stores, claiming they were essential businesses. (See South Carolina Governor Orders All Non-essential Businesses to Shut Down—Except Gun Shops.)
Here is a pertinent quote from my article:
Yet as dismal as the death rate from gun violence is in America, only six of fifty of our states have a worse death rate from guns than South Carolina. We are one of the worst states of the worst country for gun violence.
Statistics bears this out. Worldwide the death rate from guns is 4 deaths per 100,000 people. In the United States about 39,000 people die every years due to gun violence, or 12 deaths per 100,000. That’s more than deaths than from auto accidents. In South Carolina there are about 1000 deaths per year, or 17 deaths per 100,000 people. So what does South Carolina do? We make it easier for everyone to carry guns openly in public.
Even though statistics reveal the immensity of the cold cruel iceberg below the surface of public awareness, mass shootings are etched in our minds as the worst case scenarios of gun violence. We still remember the horror of the mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed. Within the last hour I wrote this, there was another shooting; this time in North Charleston. A fourteen-year-old boy was killed; another fourteen wounded. The authors noticed this wasn’t the only recent mass shooting:
The incident was among several in another spate of weekend gun violence, including mass shootings in New Jersey, in Youngstown, Ohio, and Columbus, Ohio. American cities have seen a stark rise in gun violence over the last year that criminologists have connected to the coronavirus pandemic's economic and social impact as well as mistrust in policing.
Researching this diary I made a paradoxical discovery; two of the first three articles I found on-line objecting to Open Carry were written by gun enthusiasts who would die to preserve the Second Amendment. (The Perils of Open Carry and Open Carry is a Bad Idea) They didn’t object to the law per se, as much as they thought actually carrying out the Open Carry policy was dangerous and stupid. I can almost relate. I don’t think the law should tell me I have to wear a seat-belt. But I wear one anyway—not to avoid a ticket— but because I recognize not wearing a seat-belt is dangerous and stupid. These authors contend actually carrying a firearm in public is dangerous and stupid because it endangers the person carrying the gun.
My objection to Open Carry is that it endangers everyone else. (My not wearing a seat belt only endangers me.) Regardless, if openly carrying a gun is such a bad idea, how can anyone justify laws allowing it? The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
One pro-gun nut argued, “Once the armed criminals know you are packing, you’ll be the first one shot.” In other words, openly carrying a gun increases the chance you will be shot and killed. But using this logic virtually no one should own a gun for any reason (unless they are armed insurrectionists who want to take over the US Government in order to put Trump back in the White House to be absolute dictator for life.) Study after study has confirmed that owning a gun increases your odds of being killed by a gun. The most common cause of gun death is suicide. (To reduce suicides, the Israeli army stopped allowing their soldiers to take weapons with them when they went home on leave.) The next most common form of gun death is homicide. The fear is that some evil stranger will break into you home and shoot you, if you are not protected. The reality is that someone you know well, most likely a family member, like a husband, will shoot and kill you. Yet even if someone does break into your home, your odds of getting killed are greater having a gun, than not having a gun. Gun owners (other than collectors and hunters) who buy guns for protection, only end up endangering themselves and children. But they “feel” safer.
Thankfully, I don’t have a personal experience with gun violence. But for the above reasons I refuse to own a gun. Yet I will never forget the story a woman here in South Carolina told me about what happened to her family. She and her husband had two twin daughters. They kept a gun in their home for protection. One day their six-year old daughters found the gun. One twin accidentally shot and killed her twin sister. In one second one life was extinguished, and three other lives were destroyed. Even if this were a rare event, it would be tragic. Unfortunately, such events happen every day and are becoming increasingly common. Especially in states like Texas and South Carolina that bend over backwards to make getting guns easier.
Everytown for Gun Safety sums up the problems with Open Carry succinctly:
Carrying firearms visibly in public, known as open carry, is a dangerous policy. It is exploited by white supremacists and opposed by law enforcement and the public. Members of hate groups regularly openly carry guns in a show of intimidation.
Research shows that the presence of a visible gun makes people more aggressive.
Scientific experiments have demonstrated that simply having guns around increases aggressive behavior. Just the presence of guns in Charlottesville, Virginia may have contributed to the death of the young female peaceful protestor, even though she was run over by a car, rather than shot by a gun.
When I was running for office, Everytown for Gun Safety conducted on-line seminars advocating politicians running for office to embrace sensible gun legislation in their platforms. They were preaching to the choir, as I was already doing that. But to compete with the NRA, you have to fight fire with fire, or literally fight money with money. I never received a dime from any group promoting sensible gun legislation. On the other hand, I did received hundreds of dollars from Planned Parenthood to protect a woman’s right to choose, and from the South Carolina Teacher’s Association to improve education in our state. If we are enact sensible gun legislation, I propose we put our money where our mouth is. Although I have no intensions of running again, I suggest you will get more bang for your buck contributing directly to candidates who call for gun control, than to give your money to gun control lobbies.
Now I am sure you have heard every Democrat that has called for sensible gun legislation say they are all for preserving the Second Amendment. Not this Democrat. If it were up to me, I would completely erase the Second Amendment from the Constitution. It does far more harm than good. The Second Amendment is worded so poorly, one group can claim the only legitimate right to have weapons is in a “well-regulated militia.” On the other hand, those who want zero restrictions of the possession of weapons of mass destruction focus only on the words, “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.” Moreover, not only is it impossible to discern from the wording what the founding fathers intended; this is a moot point since over 250 years ago they couldn’t possibly conceive of automatic rifles capable of killing dozens of people within seconds. Had they been able to foresee how this amendment has been used as an excuse to kill thousands of people every year, they never would have included it.
We do not need the Second Amendment to preserve the right to protect ourselves. There are many rights not written into the Bill of Rights, including the right to privacy, the right to travel, and the right to vote. Maybe these rights should be inserted into the Constitution as Amendments. They are far more justifiable than the Second Amendment.
Our Tuesday protest group was warned that we weren’t allowed to put signs on sticks as then our signs could be used as a weapon. So instead of allowing protestors to carry signs on sticks, warning about the dangers of guns, now it will be perfectly legal to bring an automatic weapon to a protest in the name of Second Amendment rights. Talk about asinine!
To be fair, Open Carry alone doesn’t tremendously put my life in greater danger, now that South Carolina has gone over to the dark side. But everything contributes to greater danger of gun violence. Just as no one piece of sensible gun legislation, such as only focusing on background checks, will end our pandemic of gun violence; each piece of legislation will save lives. We need back ground checks plus eliminating automatic weapons, plus putting age restrictions on gun ownership, plus prohibiting bump stocks, plus enacting red flag laws, plus requiring meaningful training and licensing to own a gun, etc.
On the other hand, instead of enacting such legislation to reduce gun violence; states have been enacting gun legislation guaranteed to increase gun violence. “Stand Your Ground” laws have exacerbated gun violence (See John Oliver’s masterful take on Stand Your Ground laws.) Likewise, Open Carry laws will only make gun carnage worse.
But Open Carry laws, like the one just passed in South Carolina, have another insidious side effect. By allegedly increasing Second Amendment rights, Open Carry laws actually decrease First Amendment rights. The First Amendment guarantees Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly.
Americans have the right to peacefully protest. Yet there are many who want “to shoot the messenger,” both literally and figuratively. After the January 6th insurrection, a lone pro-Trump counter-protestor showed up at our Tell Them Tuesday rally, wearing paramilitary clothing. He had a backpack and was holding a small black rectangular object that looked like a recorder. I was close enough to see it wasn’t a weapon. He tried to intimidate us. Perceiving no real threat, I “boldly” stood between him and the rest of our group of about a dozen protestors. Alone and outnumbered, he was unable to have much effect. Finally, he backed away a bit and began yelling, “These people are traitors. These people are traitors!” Shortly after that he went away.
But what if he wasn’t alone? Suppose with the new Open Carry law in South Carolina he was brandishing an automatic weapon? Suppose with tension rising and an exchange of words, tempers flared? We could be sitting ducks. One shouldn’t have to risk one’s life to peacefully protest. Openly brandishing weapons at protests does far more than intimidate and suppress free speech. It directly endangers the lives of the protestors. We hold signs calling to end gun violence. They hold guns.