The South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to approve a bill that would allow concealed guns to be brought into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

The bill, which was introduced in January by state Sen. Sean Bennett (R-Dorchester), would amend an earlier South Carolina state law that makes bringing a firearm into a place that serves beer, wine or liquor a crime punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 or a prison term of up to three years — or both.

The updated law, however, would eliminate those penalties, allowing anyone with a concealed carry permit to bring a gun into a place where alcohol is consumed on the premises, with the important exception that people carrying guns are not permitted to drink.

The bill also gives restaurant and bar owners the power to decide for themselves if their establishments will allow patrons to bring weapons inside.

State Sen. Larry Martin (R-Pickens), one of the bill’s sponsors, said the bill was intended to allow law-abiding people to protect themselves.

“Most folks are gonna use this opportunity to go into restaurants, which aren’t easily distinguished in South Carolina from bars, they’ll be going into restaurants with their families to eat a dinner in the evening, to go eat with their family with their weapons with them and walking back to their car with the benefit of protection that a concealed weapon affords,” he told The Huffington Post over the phone Wednesday.

When asked about the dangers of having concealed weapons in saloons, Sen. Martin said, “I don’t believe any CWP [concealed weapons permit] owners would go to a bar with their weapon, since [the bill says] you can’t drink alcohol with a weapon. The criminal element tends to thumb their nose at the rules, but CWP owners tend to abide by the law.”

Jason Fletcher, co-owner of upscale bistro The Green Room, in downtown Greenville, S.C., said he would forbid people from bringing concealed weapons into his restaurant if the law passes.

“I don’t see the advantage of bringing a gun into an establishment that serves alcohol,” he told HuffPost. “You might not be drinking but someone else might. Incidents can arise any time.”

South Carolina is one of the few remaining states that specifically prohibit carrying guns into restaurants that serve alcohol. (Many states have no law explicitly prohibiting it, making it legal by default.) In North Carolina, it’s also illegal to bring a gun into a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol, but legislators attempted last year to change that. In Illinois you can’t bring a concealed gun into a bar or anywhere else, because Illinois has a statewide ban on concealed carrythe last state in the nation with such a ban. However, Illinois is in the process of getting rid of that ban after a federal appellate court in December ruled the law unconstitutional.

In recent years, however, a handful of states have passed laws specifically allowing guns to be brought into places that serve alcohol. These states include Arizona, Ohio, Virginia and Tennessee, where the legislator who sponsored the state’s law stepped down from his post as chairman of a firearms task force after he was arrested for drunken driving with a .38-caliber handgun in his car.

The South Carolina House passed a similar bill last year by an overwhelming margin, but the bill was never signed into law.

The new bill now proceeds to the full Senate for a vote. Sen. Martin said he expects the Senate will vote on the bill before Easter.

Also on HuffPost:

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  • Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

    “I wish to God she had had an m-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out … and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids,” Gohmert said of slain principal Dawn Hochsprung on <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/louie-gohmert-guns_n_2311379.html”><em>Fox News Sunday</em></a>. He argued that shooters often choose schools because they know people will be unarmed.

  • Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R)

    “If people were armed, not just a police officer, but other school officials that were trained and chose to have a weapon, certainly there would be an opportunity to stop an individual trying to get into the school,” he <a href=”http://www.wtop.com/610/3162096/Gov-Is-it-time-to-arm-school-officials”>told WTOP’s “Ask the Governor” show</a> Tuesday, warning that Washington may respond to such a policy with a “knee-jerk reaction.”

  • Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) & State Sen. Frank Niceley (R)

    Gov. Haslam says he will consider a Tennessee plan to secretly arm and train some teachers, <a href=”http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/12/tennessee-armed-teachers.php”>TPM reports</a>. The legislation will be introduced by State Sen. Frank Niceley (R) next month.

    “Say some madman comes in. The first person he would probably try to take out was the resource officer. But if he doesn’t know which teacher has training, then he wouldn’t know which one had [a gun],” Niceley told TPM. “These guys are obviously cowards anyway and if someone starts shooting back, they’re going to take cover, maybe go ahead and commit suicide like most of them have.”

  • Oklahoma State Rep. Mark McCullough (R) & State Sen. Ralph Shortey (R)

    State Rep. Mark McCullough (R) <a href=”http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=336&articleid=20121217_336_0_OKLAHO168827″>told the Tulsa World</a> he plans to file legislation that would bring guns into schools, calling their absence “irresponsible.”

    “It is incredibly irresponsible to leave our schools undefended – to allow mad men to kill dozens of innocents when we have a very simple solution available to us to prevent it,” he said. “I’ve been considering this proposal for a long time. In light of the savagery on display in Connecticut, I believe it’s an idea whose time has come.”

    Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) told the Tulsa World that teachers should carry concealed weapons at school events. “Allowing teachers and administrators with concealed-carry permits the ability to have weapons at school events would provide both a measure of security for students and a deterrent against attackers,” he said.

  • Florida State Rep. Dennis Baxley (R)

    Baxley, who once sponsored Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law, <a href=”http://politics.heraldtribune.com/2012/12/17/florida-legislator-allow-guns-in-schools/”>told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune </a>that keeping guns out of schools makes them a target for attacks.

    “We need to be more realistic at looking at this policy,” he said. “In our zealousness to protect people from harm we’ve created all these gun-free zones and what we’ve inadvertently done is we’ve made them a target. A helpless target is exactly what a deranged person is looking for where they cannot be stopped.”

  • Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R)

    At a Tea Party event Monday night, <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/18/rick-perry-guns-in-schools_n_2322185.html”>Perry praised a Texas school system that allows some staff to carry concealed weapons to work</a> and encouraged local school districts to make their own policies.

  • Minnesota State Rep. Tony Cornish (R)

    Cornish <a href=”http://www.kdlt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22736&Itemid=57″>plans to introduce legislation that would allow teachers to arm themselves</a>, according to the AP.

  • Oregon State Rep. Dennis Richardson (R)

    In an email <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/oregon-state-rep-dennis-richardson-teacher-guns-stopped-connecticut-shooting_n_2317444.html?ir=Education”>obtained by Gawker</a> and excerpted below, Richardson tells three superintendents that he could have saved lives had he been armed and in Sandy Hook on Friday:

    <blockquote>If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead, and not by suicide.

    [O]ur children’s safety depends on having a number of well-trained school employees on every campus who are prepared to defend our children and save their lives?</blockquote>

  • Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett

    “And I’m not so sure — and I’m sure I’ll get mail for this — I’m not so sure I wouldn’t want one person in a school armed, ready for this kind of thing,” Bennett, who served as education secretary under Ronald Reagan, <a href=”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/bill-bennett-education-secretary-connecticut-shooting_n_2311774.html”>told <em>Meet the Press</em> Sunday</a>. “The principal lunged at this guy. The school psychologist lunged at the guy. It has to be someone who’s trained, responsible. But, my god, if you can prevent this kind of thing, I think you ought to.”