2019 SC Carry Wrap Up

South Carolina Carry is an all-volunteer organization. None of the board members are paid for their time. During 2019, we operated on a very lean budget of just over $3,500 in revenue to cover expenses of postage, printing, website expenses, gun show fees, supplies, and accountant fees.

Here's a brief synopsis of what we were up to in 2019.

During 2019 the SC Carry Legislative Committee worked with multiple legislators in both the SC House and SC Senate to introduce pro-gun bills. Senator Shane Martin sponsored a quality Constitutional Carry Bill and used Senate rules to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. This was done on the last day, and a vote should be held in 2020. In the House, Representative Jonathan Hill introduced another quality Constitutional Carry Bill. Due to infighting within Representative Hill’s party, a second Constitutional Carry Bill was introduced by Representative Bobby Cox. The Cox Bill is a quality piece of work, and SC Carry supports moving this legislation forward. Several board members and organization members attended committee hearings on firearm-related legislation. South Carolina Carry and several members were recognized on the floor of the SC Senate.

During the offseason, the Legislative Committee met with Representatives and Senators to determine our best strategy forward in 2020. It will be a tough year, and we hope to bring at least one bill to a chamber floor for a vote.

South Carolina Carry was invited to give 2nd Amendment Speech at a Duke for US Senate Rally, which our president gave in December.

We staffed booths at gun shows in Greenville, Columbia, Florence, Ladson, & Myrtle Beach. We scheduled 17 gun shows during 2019 but several were canceled due to lack of volunteers to work the table. 

A lot of research and preparation was put in by John Lane, Lance Duncan, & Dan Roberts for an Open Carry walk that was held in Columbia in April 2019.

In an effort to provide a more functional web platform and save the organization money in the long run, we migrated our website away from Nationbuilder and onto a more easily management WordPress based site.

We have made an effort to reach out to membership with more regular email communications by integrating our blog posts into our email marketing platform. Now, members receive an email update once daily when new blog posts are published.

South Carolina Carry sponsored firearm safety classes through Arrowood Firearm Safety and Training.

We reached out to media outlets by sending out multiple press releases throughout the year, most of which were not published and giving an interview to the Carolina News at the University of South Carolina regarding firearm restrictions in the City of Columbia.

We will continue working with our legislators and reaching out to fill our vacant zone and county leadership positions.