After clearing a House subcommittee this week and gaining half of the House representatives as sponsors, S.C. Rep. Bill Hixon's bill that would allow Georgia and South Carolina concealed-weapon permit holders to carry across the state line appears to be "on the fast track," the lawmaker said this week.
Hixon's bill, H.3799, had 62 sponsors on Friday afternoon, including all House members from Aiken County. The House of Representatives has 124 members.
"We're on the fast track," Hixon, R-North Augusta, said Thursday after his bill passed a House Judiciary Subcommittee. It is expected to go before the full Judiciary Committee this week.
The bill would require South Carolina to recognize concealed weapons permits, or CWPs, issued by Georgia and North Carolina.
Easing the bill's progress is the lack of protest from law enforcement agencies, which Hixon said have typically opposed similar measures in the past.
Mark Keel, chief of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division, has decided to "remain neutral" on this bill, said Hixon, who met last week with representatives from the Aiken Department of Public Safety, the North Augusta Department of Public Safety and Aiken County Sheriff Michael Hunt.
Detective Jeremy Hembree, a spokesman for Aiken Public Safety, said Chief Charles Barranco is neither for nor against the bill.
"He's neutral to the process," Hembree said. "He's going to remain neutral while the legislative process goes through."
Capt. Eric Abdullah said the Sheriff's Office will enforce the law whichever way lawmakers vote.
"Whatever the legislature passes, we're going to enforce the law," he said. "That's our stance on it."
One source of pushback against the bill has been the S.C. Sheriffs' Association, the executive director of which has come out against the proposal because, unlike South Carolina, Georgia doesn't require training or for the permit holder to show proficiency on the weapon.
"You don't have to have training, if you're a certain age, to be able to go hunting," Hixon said. "It's not your concealed-weapon carriers that's giving people problems. Those are the good guys."
He also noted that South Carolina permits would immediately be recognized in Georgia if the bill were to pass.
"Hypothetically, if South Carolina passes this, Georgia's law already recognizes any state that recognizes them," he said.
Teddy Kulmala covers the crime and courts beat for the Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since August 2012. He is a native of Williston and majored in communication studies at Clemson University.