South Carolina generally prohibits possessing a firearm on any premises or property owned, operated, or controlled by a private or public school, college, university, technical college, or other post-secondary institution, or in any publicly-owned building, without the express permission of the authorities in charge of the premises or property.¹ A separate state law generally prohibits people from carrying a firearm on their person while on any elementary or secondary school property.²

Firearms may be kept inside an attended or locked motor vehicle on school property if the gun is secured in a closed glove compartment, closed console, closed trunk, or in a closed container secured by an integral fastener and transported in the luggage compartment of the vehicle.³ Concealable firearms are also prohibited at school or college athletic events not related to firearms, daycares and pre-school facilities, and the office or the business meeting of the governing body of a public school district.⁴

In South Carolina, district school boards must expel for not less than one year a student who is determined to have brought a firearm to a school or any setting under the jurisdiction of a local board of trustees.⁵ The one-year expulsion is subject to modification by the district superintendent of education on a case-by-case basis.⁶ Students expelled pursuant to this section are not precluded from receiving educational services in an alternative setting.⁷

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1. S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-420(A).[↩]
2. S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-430(A).[↩]
3. S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-420(A), 16-23-430(B).[↩]
4. S.C. Code Ann. § 23-31-215(M)(5)–(7).[↩]
5. S.C. Code Ann. § 59-63-235.[↩]
6. Id.[↩]
7. Id.[↩]