Everything that’s wrong with South Carolina is written in today’s Greenville News. The front page headline “Sterling Granted Parole” was a stunner. Jack Sterling, former HomeGold board chairman, served less than one year of a five-year prison sentence for securities fraud. I guess it speaks to my eternal optimism that this news came as a shock to me. I honestly believed Sterling didn’t have a chance in hell at parole after less than a year. The conviction itself took years to achieve and then after a slap on the wrist, just time enough behind bars for Sterling to tutor his fellow inmates, curry favor with influential friends and get religion and now it’s over. The article by David Dykes and Tim Smith

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20130321/NEWS06/303210013/Attorney-general-criticizes-decision-grant-Sterling-parole

references that Sterling’s attorney Jon Ozmint, is the former director of the state Corrections Department, who no doubt knew every single member of the Paroles and Pardons board. In addition to his influential attorney Sterling’s list of character witnesses reads like a roster of Who’s Who in Upstate South Carolina, including former Governor David Wilkins, Greenville Mayor Knox White, the ubiquitous Billy Wilkins, attorney David Freeman, Bob Hughes and Billy Webster. I’m now convinced that you could commit cold blooded murder in broad daylight and never serve a day in prison if you hire Billy Wilkins to represent you. Honest to God people if you didn’t understand how politics and influence work in South Carolina, this case, Jack Sterling is a text book example.

12,000 people, many of them retired textile workers mainly from Pickens County lost an estimated $278 million when Home Gold collapsed 10 years ago. It’s a long involved story but Jack Sterling was the mastermind and he is the one that ultimately should take responsibility. Meanwhile former HomeGold CEO, Ronald Sheppard is serving a 20-year sentence and has been denied parole twice. Sheppard’s attorney Grady Query was quoted as saying, “It appears that hypocrisy is not only alive and well in South Carolina but that it is in fact a dominant feature.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

The next example of outrage is on the front page of the Metro section.The headline, “Open carry gun bill gets nod.” A Senate sub-committee approved a bill that would allow people to carry guns in public in South Carolina without a concealed weapons permit. The public hearing where the vote was taken was packed with gun supporters who loudly cheered references to the Second Amendment. Currently law requires anyone who wants to carry a gun in public to have a permit and keep it concealed. The permit requires 8 hours of gun safety training. Experts like Charleston Police Capt. Brian Ambrose cautioned against the move, “Many times good people will do bad things. Imagine a domestic dispute or a work argument where a handgun has now been legally introduced.” The proposal goes before the Senate Judiciary committee next month.

After reading these articles I was relieved to find some badly needed common sense in the editorial section. Today’s editorial is critical of another gun related bill under debate in the state House of Representatives, this one restricting doctors from discussing gun safety with their patients. In the closing paragraphs The Greenville News admonishes lawmakers, “this bill and other political movements that hint at a hidden government agenda to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights border on paranoia. They also border on irresponsibility.”

I would go farther. Both of these crazy gun bills are irresponsible, unnecessary and feed the paranoia of all the gun owners in this state. Who speaks for the rest of us?