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ORGANIZED OPEN CARRY EVENT SCHEDULED IN COLUMBIA 2019/04/06 (apparently duplicated by a forum newbie...do not reply)

sherra

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South Carolina Carry, Inc. (SC Carry) has planned an event to draw attention to ongoing efforts to enact open carry legislation in South Carolina for all law-abiding residents.

Under current South Carolina law, open carry of a long gun is not illegal for those who are legal to possess a firearm, and open carry of a handgun is only legally permitted when a licensed sportsman is engaged in or traveling to and from fishing or hunting. On Saturday, April 6, 2019, from 10 AM to 4 PM South Carolina Carry will host an Open Carry Fishing Trip. Attendees will meet at a designated location in Columbia and walk down to the river to fish.

The South Carolina Sheriffs' Association (SCSA) has pushed against making open carry legal for all residents under all circumstances where concealed carry is already legal. The SCSA claims their opposition is purely one of “officer safety.”

45 states, including our bordering states of North Carolina and Georgia, allow open carry of handguns in some form. 31 states allow for open carry with no permit required, with 16 currently having or recently passed legislation for permitless “Constitutional Carry” for all that are legally permitted to possess a firearm. Law enforcement officials in these states have not reported any significant issues with the practice.

Sherra Scott, president of South Carolina Carry, Inc. states, "The Sheriffs Association has stated concerns about officer safety when it comes to allowing open carry in South Carolina. It sounds like they are suggesting the law enforcement officers in South Carolina are not as skilled in reading body language as their brother and sister officers in the rest of the Country and that law-abiding South Carolina residents are not as capable or responsible as their fellow Americans."

"Members of some gun control groups have voiced opposition to the idea of open carry stating citizens may be “fearful” of seeing someone who is armed and not a uniformed law enforcement officer. However, there is a very good chance they are in the close presence of someone already legally carrying a handgun just about anywhere they go on a daily basis. They fail to explain how a piece of cloth obscuring their view of the firearm offers any sort of “protection” or alleviation for their concerns," says Dan Roberts, Director of Outreach for South Carolina Carry, Inc. "We have made sure the event is compliant by obtaining permits and notifying local law enforcement agencies of the event," Roberts stated.

https://www.southcarolinacarry.org/organized-open-carry-event-scheduled-in-columbia/
*
Our rally/parking point will be 1301 Gervais St., Columbia, SC at 10 AM, Saturday, April 6, 2019
 

color of law

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Remember Hugh Jarmis of WisconsinCarry? SCCarry smells much the same, not least for the lack of dialogue, same as Hugh Jarmis’ lectures. They’ll be taking their ball and playing elsewhere soon.
Doug, after it being made perfectly clear that this a double post, why would you respond to it?
 
Last edited:

solus

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Remember Hugh Jarmis of WisconsinCarry? SCCarry smells much the same, not least for the lack of dialogue, same as Hugh Jarmis’ lectures. They’ll be taking their ball and playing elsewhere soon.
Dougie or franky, or whomever your persona is today ~ remind us of WI Hugh's plight as it compares to SC’s grassroots dormant abandoned cause there are more important items to remember!
 

OC for ME

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Good luck. Looking forward to a follow up post. ...just to get us back on track. There is a effort by a SC Gun Rights org...let us support them as best that each of us can and see what happens.
 

color of law

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Technically, this is the original post on this topic...by three minutes. 9:49 AM vs. the other post at 9:52 AM.

Lighten up Francis...;)
My point is this forum at one time actually had a Mod. The Mod took care of this stuff. We don't have simple moderation anymore. That is my beef.

And, you Shirley can't be serious.;)

 

color of law

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Good luck. Looking forward to a follow up post. ...just to get us back on track. There is a effort by a SC Gun Rights org...let us support them as best that each of us can and see what happens.
I posted on the duplicate thread, in effect, asking why that statute has not been challanged as unconstitutional. OK fine, they want to do a walk to bring attention to the problem, yet Heller and McDonald were passed over 10 years ago. What have they been doing for the last 10 years?
 

OC for ME

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These folks in SC are doing what they can. Knocking their efforts today does a disservice to all of our efforts at the state level.

It could very well be that these folks are frustrated at the lack of effort(s) from other SC citizens (past and present), and after a long period of inaction they have now decided to take up the torch. A wee bit of patience is warranted at this juncture.

Being from SC, and viewing remotely from Misery, I'll make a few calls back to kinfolk and attempt to get them to send a note to their reps in support of this renewed effort to restore our 2A in SC.
 

Doug_Nightmare

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The statute has been declared constitutional (by the SCSC) in the annotations to SC Constitution Article I Section 20 - based on my recollection of the difficulties writing and passing the 1996 Law Abiding Citizens Self-Defense Act.

In about 2011 South Carolina Grass Roots Gun Rights - scfirearms.org - was enjoined from further activity by Gun Owners of South Carolina GOSC the state NRA affiliate. All of these good hearted citizens lifted not a finger. The web site is still registered and, last I looked, the Defender newsletter PDF archives still existed. The Defender carried the legal controversy until GRGRSC was gagged.

When I realized the perfidy of the NRA assiliate then I abandoned my CCL instructor syllabus. I don’t have much good to say about them.

I do not believe that South Carolina will enjoy Constitutional Carry or regular open carry while the P4P hegemony persists.
 

color of law

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The statute has been declared constitutional (by the SCSC) in the annotations to SC Constitution Article I Section 20 - based on my recollection of the difficulties writing and passing the 1996 Law Abiding Citizens Self-Defense Act......
What is the supreme court case? I found no case. I did a search for that statute and no SC case comes up. A little help here.
 

solus

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The statute has been declared constitutional (by the SCSC) in the annotations to SC Constitution Article I Section 20 - based on my recollection of the difficulties writing and passing the 1996 Law Abiding Citizens Self-Defense Act.

In about 2011 South Carolina Grass Roots Gun Rights - scfirearms.org - was enjoined from further activity by Gun Owners of South Carolina GOSC the state NRA affiliate. All of these good hearted citizens lifted not a finger. The web site is still registered and, last I looked, the Defender newsletter PDF archives still existed. The Defender carried the legal controversy until GRGRSC was gagged.

When I realized the perfidy of the NRA assiliate then I abandoned my CCL instructor syllabus. I don’t have much good to say about them.

I do not believe that South Carolina will enjoy Constitutional Carry or regular open carry while the P4P hegemony persists.

Goodness Dougy, these tidbits about the dormant and abandoned SC grassroots website but i believe your recollection is quite faulty as to the real story of this SC grassroots enity from Paul Harvey’s perspective...

1) hp-hobo 30 march 11 quote:

Something strange is afoot in the SC gun rights community!
Grassroots SC, Inc. (also known as “Grassroots Gunrights”) is a well-known gun rights advocacy organization in South Carolina. For several years now, that organization has strongly opposed any legislation that would threaten gun rights of the citizens of this state. They have fought the good fight.

But something has been going on recently at Grassroots Gunrights that just does not smell right. The organization recently sent out a frantic letter and ballot to “2492 members eligible to vote” asking them to vote to amend the organizations Article of Incorporation to “change from a corporation that will have members, to a corporation that will not have members.” With this ballot comes a lengthy and tortured explanation by the group’s president, Ed Kelleher, why the Board of Directors recommends members vote for this change.

In the letter, Mr. Kelleher claims he “recently found out” - after being a leader in this SC nonprofit corporation since July of 1999 - members have a right under SC law to obtain the membership list. Just how competent is someone who “just found out” such a critical piece of information after being on the board of directors for over ten years?

The letter attempts to scare members into voting for the change to a “non-membership” organization by saying “This private personal information of the most active pro gun rights people in SC – and that means YOU – is vulnerable!”

So is Mr. Kelleher saying that some anti-gun person or organization has indeed infiltrated their membership? Is some anti-gun organization trying to obtain their membership list? The letter never says this outright, but appears to imply so.

But sources say that something very different is happening behind the scenes, and members are not being told the whole story by Grassroots leadership.

A group of members is evidently unhappy with the current leadership of Grassroots. It appears they are worried that the board of directors may have knowingly failed to hold annual membership meetings and annual elections of directors (as required by SC law) since the organization formed in 1999. That is almost TWELVE years!

If there have been no elections in over a decade, this must mean all the current directors have been directors from the beginning. One can assume the other directors are aware of this failure to comply with SC law as well. Just why it is that presumably intelligent leaders of a gun rights organization would open the organization up to civil and criminal prosecution in this way is unclear.

We hear that some members have become so concerned about this exposure to civil and criminal prosecution caused by this failure of leadership to obey the law for so many years, that they have requested a copy of the organization’s bylaws and have requested an election be held. By SC law, any member can obtain certain information from a “membership” organization. By law, any member can obtain documents such as a copy of the bylaws, a membership list with names and addresses, the minutes of past meetings, and copies of financial documents.

So far those who run Grassroots have not provided that member with all of the documents he requested. However, Grassroots leaders did quickly craft a letter and ballot which was mailed out to 2492 members. (One wonders why a South Carolina gun rights organization that has been around for over ten years does not have ten or twenty thousand members by now. After all, this IS a southern state. Could this too be a failure of leadership?)

But shouldn’t Grassroots be able to maintain the privacy of their members’ names and home addresses? Actually no, not according to SC law they shouldn’t. Maybe the list should be kept from those outside an organization, but not from the organization’s own members. With no access to a membership list, a member who wished to run for office in an organization’s next election would be unable to inform all other members of his qualifications and desire to be elected.

Hmmm. It seems that members have had:
  1. No access to the Grassroots bylaws for many years,
  2. No copies of meeting minutes
  3. No access to the membership list
  4. No (mandatory) elections.

A common thread begins to emerge, here. It would seem that Grassroots leaders are running scared, scrambling to find any way they can to prevent giving the list out. Grassroots President Ed Kelleher’s letter claims the reason is to “prevent confiscation” of the names and home addresses of members, by “enemies.” And this privacy is important because Mr. Kelleher “promised” members that the membership list would always remain private. Even if his promise violates the law?

Why not simply provide the member with those documents which the law requires to be released? Why not simply hold a members meeting and an election? Perhaps there is concern among current officers that they would not be reelected. Would not annual reelection of the current officers simply serve to strengthen their legitimacy?

It appears the real truth is that the current leaders in fear of losing their tight grip on the organization. Hence the frantic tone of the letter and the ballot, which if it passes would guarantee the current leaders of Grassroots would remain so for life. But it still would not protect the organization from being sued, nor its officers prosecuted, for failing to hold elections over the past dozen years.

Grassroot may indeed be in the throes of a death struggle right now. But if so, it is NOT from outside, evil, anti-gun forces. Apparently it is because current leaders have failed miserably at upholding their fiduciary duty to follow the law for many years, and someone finally caught them at it.

If Grassroots survives this ordeal at all, it will have to be with new leadership. Who would donate one dime to an organization - no matter how lofty its goals - led by people who are willing to violate the law for to hold on to their offices? And who wants to be a “non-member” of an organization - even a great one - in which people cannot vote, and whose leaders are apparently willing to brush aside pesky laws which conflict with a man’s promise? What other laws are such “leaders” willing to violate?

2) Hp-hobo 14 apr 11 quote:

UPDATE: The board of directors for Grassroots Gunrights has been summoned to appear in court this coming Monday, April 18, 2011 in Lexington, SC. They were also ordered to cease all corporate activity including their attempt at reorganizing from a membership organization into a non-membership organization so that they would not be subject to the requirements under law that they are accused of violating. It should be interesting to read the transcripts of testimony under oath to find out why they haven't held meetings in nearly ten years, apparently have issued no reports, have withheld membership lists from members, etc.

Grassroots Gun Rights has been a vital factor in protecting and restoring a large measure of our unalienable right to individual and collective self-defense in South Carolina. It's a shame that the individuals in control are apparently unwilling to relinquish control--or to even risk relinquishing control--as required under the rules of the legal process they used to organize.

Everyone should be perfectly clear on this point, however: the members of the board were repeatedly warned by many people in the organization that they were not meeting their requirements under the law. They foolishly brought this onto themselves by ignoring those warnings. I'm not sure how they'll attempt to diffuse or deflect the accusations against them since simply obeying the law is a more than reasonable expectation from any such organization.

Hopefully, Grassroots will survive and thrive under new leadership. There should be no prejudice held against the Grassroots organization as a whole if a new board is elected and they meet their legal obligations. There is still a lot of work ahead in restoring and protecting our right to self-defense. We need them, but we need board members who will operate legally and who will show proper respect to the members and their demands.

Continued
 

solus

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3) Hp-hobo 11 jul 11 quote:

GrassRoots Gun Rights' board of directors has lost a lawsuit filed by Ed Looney and Ed Lown to bring the organization back into compliance with South Carolina state law governing their incorporation. The current "board members for life" have already filed an intent to appeal but unless they can find a judge who will rule in a way diametrically opposed to the law, they don't have a chance. The judge has ordered the attempt to reincorporate (so as to avoid the lawsuit through a mail-in ballot sent to the membership) null and void. He has also ordered the board to turn over the requested information.
Unquote.

Doug, there seems to be quite a different tale about the SC grassroots BOD scofflaws for flagrantly violating SC corp statutes, than you lead us to believe from your recollections, isn’t there! It isn’t dormant is has legally been shut down completely ~ strange you never, ever mentioned it as you consistently waved their advocacy banner out here on OCDC in recent past years ~ recollections you say...hummm?
 

OC for ME

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solus

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Posted on other thread
Per your request dougie,
Disclaimer
Searching for 'Annotations' in CONSTITUTION
There are NO matches for the query Annotations in CONSTITUTION

Art 1, sec 20 has an editor’s note...
Editor’s Note

The present provisions of this section are identical to former Section 26 of Article I as it existed prior to the 1971 revision. For similar provisions in Constitution of 1868, see Const 1868, Art I, Section Section 28, 29.

But last i checked annotated and editor’s note have two very different contextual meanings especially from a legal perspective...some local yokel bloke stuck in a note...eh who cares. But annotation is part of the record of the official certified document.
 
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