South Carolina state senator Larry Martin (R) has successfully pushed a bill through subcommittee that bans the possession of guns and ammunition not only for people who caused “bodily injury” via a domestic disturbance, but those who “could have” as well.
According to the text of Martin’s bill—S. 3—persons who commit the offense of “criminal domestic violence in the second degree” cannot “ship, transport, or receive a firearm or ammunition.” The offense of “criminal domestic violence in the second degree” applies not only to those who cause “moderate bodily injury to their household member” but those who create a situation where “moderate bodily injury to their household member could have resulted.”
Not that it did occur but that it could have. This appears to open the door to guilt by accusation, and a subsequent suspension of 2nd Amendment rights.
In December, CBS News reported that Martin’s bill “does not ask law enforcement to confiscate weapons from these people.” Instead, those banned from gun possession under S.3 will have a period of time “to dispose of their weapons,” after which time they “could be charged with a felony punishable by a year in prison.”
“Martin believes that threat will lead to compliance.”
In February 2013, Senator Martin was praised by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America for helping to defeat an expansion of the exercise of 2nd Amendment rights via open carry. At the time, Moms Demand released a letter saying: “We applaud [Judiciary] Committee Chairman Larry Martin for his leadership in opposing this dangerous bill” and for standing for “gun sense.”
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