South Carolina Statehouse Blog

This week, the debate about whether or not the list of concealed-weapon permit holders should be accessible through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) is taking place in the South Carolina Statehouse. A bill, House Bill 3528, would amend the current law in a couple of ways that would restrict the access to the list. The bill would make it so that:

1. The list can only be released to law enforcement or others by court order.
2. Those in possession of the list that do not fall into the above two categories must destroy their copy.
3. SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) is now to publish an annual report with statistics of how many gun permit holders there are, how many were denied, and reasons for a persons denial of a permit.

Representative Michael Pitts of District 14 is one of the main proponents of House Bill 3528, which would limit who the list of concealed-weapon permit holders is revealed to. I was able to interview Representative Pitts about this bill and the following is based on that interview.

Representative Pitts started off by stating that he supports the FOI and believes that the public should have an insight to what the government is doing. However, he also believes that there is a big difference between personal information and what the government should have to release to the public. Therefore, there has to be a balancing act between an individual’s privacy rights and the publics’ ability to access government information.

According to Rep Pitts, this balance is achieved with H.3528. The public will still be able to access the statistical knowledge about how many permits were given out and how many were denied but the actual names and addresses of permit holders will be protected. As a compromise, the press will be able to see the information about those who were revoked.

“If someone’s [permit application] is revoked,” Rep Pitts states, “then the press will have access to that and as to why it was revoked.”

Therefore, if someone violated a crime and tried to apply for a permit, SLED would be obligated to hand over to the press that person’s information that includes a explanation about why their permit was revoked.

With the list of those who were denied available, Pitts feels that it is unnecessary to release the list of those currently holding a concealed-weapons permit. If this list was made public, the names and home addresses of those on it would be available to the press.

“There are wives of police officers in this state that have a concealed-weapons permit for a reason,” Rep Pitts states, “They don’t need their names published.”

One of his fears is a repeat of what happened in Virginia when the Roanoke Times released the whole concealed-weapons permit list. A recent article concerning this topic in Charleston’s The Post and Courier has some details about the Roanoke event.

When the question was asked of Bill Rogers, the lobbyist for the press association, what will keep what happened in Roanoke from happening in South Carolina, his answer was “integrity” of South Carolina’s press. However, Rep Pitt doesn’t put to much faith in the press citing two incidences where the press’ integrity has come into question. One incident he cited was The State releasing a list of all state legislators with a concealed-weapons permit and the press’ coverage of Prince Harry’s Afghanistan tour.

Representative Pitts believes that the main steam media often doesn’t exercise the same responsibility with the First Amendment as he, a gun owner, does with the Second Amendment.

To sum up how he felt, Representative Pitts quoted Shakespeare by stating “the pen is mightier than the sword,” a warning that the powers of the press are often greater than any weapon.