APRIL 16, 2010 – State Rep. Bakari Sellers, D-Denmark, wants to allow “responsible” gun owners to be able to stow guns under the seat of their car or truck.

This has got to be one of the dumbest proposals offered in a long time.

Current state law allows gun owners to keep guns in vehicles in four places: the closed glove compartment, a closed console, the closed trunk, or inside a closed and secured container in the vehicle’s luggage compartment. Isn’t that enough for the state deemed the most violent in the nation?

Allowing someone to put a gun under a car seat seems to present a number of problems:

• It offers easier access for drivers, which could make traffic stops less safe for law enforcement officers. Says Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the S.C. Law Enforcement Officers Association: “It’s just one more level of danger that is added to their job.”

• A stowed gun could slide forward under a driver’s foot and impede driving.

• A stowed gun could slide backward into the hands of a child in the backseat.

Sellers, a lawyer who is one of the House of Representatives’ youngest members, says he’s heard all of these criticisms. He doesn’t think his bill, which this week passed from a House subcommittee to the full Judiciary committee, is dumb at all. It’s OK in other states, he says, to have a gun under the seat.

“All I’m trying to do is allow responsible gun owners a choice in putting their gun where they deem fit,” he said. “There comes a time where we over-legislate and what I’m trying to do is pull back the reins and give people a choice.”

Choice? If lawmakers go down this road and use this logic to pass this “gun choice” measure, it might come back to haunt them when yet another round of the abortion wars occurs.

One of the reasons for pushing the bill is that some South Carolinians are being popped by police for having a gun under the seat because they don’t know it’s illegal to have it there.

But instead of changing a law that currently offers “choice” to take into account ignorance of the law by some South Carolinians, it would be better to embark on a gun placement education campaign, instead of dumbing down the current law.

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Since a recent column on how important it is to fill out the Census because it gives the state more resources and potentially another congressional district, South Carolina has been noticed as having a much-improved rate of return for mailed-in Census forms. Ten years ago, the state was second from the bottom with just 65 percent of forms returned. By Friday, the last day to mail the forms, SC’s rate had improved to 69 percent.

But that doesn’t mean all things have gone swimmingly. One reader from the Florence area wrote that he and his neighbors never received Census forms in the mail. They were concerned because they said they definitely would have preferred to spend the cost of a stamp to return the form, instead of the average cost of $57 for a Census worker to visit their homes to get the information.

Not only did we notify Census officials of the problem, but the reader contacted his congressman’s office. The result: No contact from the Census bureau, but he heard on a local TV station that “we need do nothing as we will be visited by Census folks sometime after May 2010 … with this kind of experience, I’m surprised to hear that SC has a [then] 68% response rate.”

Oh well.

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This year, Statehouse Report will offer endorsements in competitive statewide elections for constitutional officers. Since we closely watch what happens in state government and politics, we believe our experience might be helpful to readers considering various candidates.

Before we make primary endorsements in late May, we’re sending a series of questions to candidates to learn their views on various issues. We’ll post their answers in full on our Web site.

In the meantime, please let us know your questions for candidates. If they’re really good, we’ll include them. Send questions by April 21 to: brack@statehousereport.com.