Article I, § 20 of the South Carolina Constitution provides, in part, that “[a] well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

There are not many cases interpreting Article 1, § 20. In the 1907 case State v. Johnson, the Supreme Court of South Carolina rejected a challenge to a Charleston ordinance prohibiting the discharge of firearms within the city limits.¹ The court reasoned that the ordinance did not run afoul of the state constitutional right to bear arms by prohibiting an individual from possessing a firearm on his or her premises, but merely prohibited him or her from discharging the gun within the city limits. Thus, the court held that the ordinance was a reasonable exercise of the city’s police power.²

More recently, in the 2008 case State v. Bolin, the Supreme Court of South Carolina rejected a defendant’s article I, § 20 challenge to his conviction for possession of a pistol by a person under age 21 per S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-30.³ Because article I, § 20 granted him the right to bear arms, defendant argued, he could not be charged with a crime for handgun possession.⁴ The court held that S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-30 did not violate the state right to bear arms because, although state law prohibits a person under age 21 from possessing a handgun, this does not “prevent a person under the age of 21 from possessing other types of guns.”⁵

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1. 56 S.E. 544 (S.C. 1907).[↩]
2. Id. at 545.[↩]
3. 662 S.E.2d 38, 40 (S.C. 2008).[↩]
4. Id. at 39.[↩]
5. Id.[↩]