By Paul Hyde
June 17 arrives here, as always, like a brooding shadow over sunny South Carolina.
On that day 10 years ago, Dylann Storm Roof brutally murdered nine worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
State lawmakers, sadly true to form, have let another legislative session expire without closing the so-called “Charleston loophole” that allowed Roof to purchase his murder weapon.
If South Carolina lawmakers can’t learn anything from this massacre after 10 years, they may be unteachable.
The loophole allows gun sales to proceed by default after three business days even if a background check has not been completed.
In the wake of the June 17, 2015, massacre, other states acted to protect their citizens by closing or limiting the Charleston loophole.
They looked at the Charleston massacre as a wake-up call, a grim teachable moment.
Some states had already fixed the problem before the Charleston shooting, recognizing the loophole as a dangerous gap in the federal background-check system — a disaster waiting to happen.
In all, 22 states have enacted pragmatic policies to give law enforcement more time to complete a thorough background check. Those states supported the ability of law enforcement, in short, to do their job.
Meanwhile, the state whose largest city gave the loophole its name has done nothing.
A red flag ignored
The Charleston loophole allowed Roof, an avowed white supremacist, to obtain a weapon in South Carolina that he should not have been able to legally purchase.
Arrested on a felony drug charge months before the Charleston shooting, Roof admitted to Columbia police to being in possession of drugs. That should have prevented him from buying a .45-caliber Glock pistol.
But the FBI didn’t complete his background check within three business days.
More than 90% of federal background checks are completed in minutes. A background check that takes longer than three days often is a red flag that something is seriously wrong.
Background checks delayed more than three days are four times more likely to result in a denial determination, according to the gun violence prevention organization Everytown.
Between January and mid-November 2020, the FBI flagged nearly 6,000 gun sales because a purchaser who could not legally possess a firearm was able to buy one due to the Charleston loophole, according to Everytown.
Among those whom Roof murdered in his racially motivated attack was Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s beloved pastor and a state senator.
Protecting the well-being of South Carolinians is a fundamental responsibility of state government.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson in warning June 14 “No Kings” protesters against violence called South Carolina “a law and order state.”
Actually, South Carolina is one of the most lawless states in the nation: ranking eighth in the overall violent crime rate in 2023 (ninth when including Washington, D.C., which tops the list).
I reached out to the press spokesman for Wilson by phone and email twice to see if Wilson, our state’s chief law enforcement officer, supports closing the Charleston loophole. He did not respond.
On the federal level, meanwhile, there’s a glimmer of hope. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn has launched another effort to close the loophole nationwide, according to reporting by the S.C. Daily Gazette’s Shaun Chornobroff.
Instead of letting a gun sale go through after three business days, the bill would give the FBI up to 20 business days to conduct a stronger background check, Chornobroff reported.
But Clyburn is unlikely to get much support from congressional Republicans, especially in gun-crazy South Carolina.
The wrong direction
On the state level, lawmakers have not only refused to address the Charleston loophole, they’ve taken the state in the wrong direction, loosening gun laws — such as the permit-less carry law.
South Carolina remains one of the worst states in the nation for gun violence. The state rose from 11th highest in the nation in the rate of gun deaths per 100,000 residents in 2021 to 10th highest in 2022, when including Washington, D.C. (in ninth place), according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
South Carolina should not be loosening gun restrictions but tightening them up — mandating universal background checks, enacting red-flag laws and requiring the safe storage of guns.
Closing the Charleston loophole, meanwhile, should remain a top priority.
A year ago today, I wrote that state lawmakers could best honor the Emanuel Nine by finding the courage to close the Charleston loophole by the 10th anniversary of the massacre.
Now that anniversary is here, and lawmakers have chosen to dishonor the memory of the Emanuel Nine with a shrug of the shoulders.
But the fight continues, led by Clyburn and South Carolinians at the grassroots level.
We can’t change the tragic past, but we can create a safer future.
Paul Hyde is a longtime journalist and teacher in the Upstate. He worked 18 years for the Greenville News as a columnist, editorial writer, education reporter and arts writer. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Clemson and Harvard universities. He has written for the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and USA Today, among other publications. He currently is a regular contributor to the Greenville Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Classical Voice North America.
