The emergency ordinance will prevent lawfully armed citizens from driving anywhere near the State House.
Via The State
The president of a prominent South Carolina gun rights group said Friday that an emergency Columbia city ordinance enacted last week to allow police to quickly arrest armed and dangerous people is not lawful.
But a council member said members had checked state law and determined that they were allowed to pass the temporary ordinance.
Council passed the measure Thursday night after hearing warnings from law enforcement that demonstrations relating to the Confederate flag at the State House might attract violent gun-toting people and groups that might do harm.
“It’s illegal,” said Gerald Stoudemire, president of the Gun Owners of South Carolina, who teaches concealed weapons classes, runs a gun shop and has testified on gun laws before various S.C. House and Senate committees.
Stoudemire, 68, said the new city ordinance flies in the face of a state law that says local governments cannot pass ordinances that put more restrictions on firearms than state law.
The city’s emergency ordinance, passed Thursday night, made illegal the carrying of firearms by citizens within 250 feet of the State House. The ordinance will expire around Aug. 9. It basically gives police the right within that zone to check out people they think might be carrying concealed weapons and arrest them if they are.
Council members passed the ordinance after hearing from city police Chief Skip Holbrook that police intelligence units were picking up information that various “hate groups” whose members are known to carry weapons might converge on Columbia for Friday’s lowering of the Confederate flag ceremony.
Police are also concerned that armed and potentially violent people will show up at a planned July 18 Ku Klux Klan rally at the State House, according to the ordinance passed by city council.
While state law prohibits the carrying of firearms by citizens on State House grounds, state law currently allows people to carry guns – including concealed guns if they have a permit – just off State House grounds, Stoudemire said. Thus, council’s action to restrict the rights of people to carry guns around the State House property goes further than state law and is illegal, Stoudemire said.