Former state Sen. Lee Bright (R-SC) announced earlier this month that he will seek his party’s nomination for the U.S. House seat being left open by retiring Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC). His long record of pushing for more guns in schools, in light of February’s horrific Parkland school mass shooting, might be even more disconcerting than his consistently far-right record on LGBTQ equality, the Confederate flag, immigration, states “rights,” and the role of women in society.
Bright believes the Second Amendment is more or less absolute, and has long fought against gun restrictions. In a 2013 Facebook post, he argued that those who say “if it saves one life, we should” enact gun control make no more sense than calling for a ban on “all swimming pools and hotdogs.” He repeatedly introduced unconstitutional legislation that aimed to exempt all South Carolina-made firearms, ammunition, and gun accessories made from federal regulation. Though most people with mental health conditions are not violent, some people are prohibited from owning guns following a court evaluation of their mental illness — and Bright was one of just six state legislators to oppose a state law enforcing this policy.
But perhaps his most extreme gun views relate to guns in schools. While some pro-gun advocates have argued that arming some teachers could stop school shootings, Bright believes that the Second Amendment already guarantees every teacher’s right to do so — even if it’s a fully automatic weapon. In a 2014 radio interview, he was asked by Fox News Radio’s Alan Colmes if teachers should be able to bring machine guns into school buildings. “I would think a teacher protecting a school grounds should be able to carry whatever she can carry legally.” Pressed on the point, he claimed, “The Second Amendment is pretty clear. It says the right to carry arms should not be infringed,” and added he does not “see how the government can regulate it.
And, arguing that “the more guns we have the safer we are,” Bright authored a bill that would train public high school students on how to shoot guns, at an off-site location.
At a 2013 pro-gun rally, he declared that “the Second Amendment is about hunting down tyrants,” and that, “The media is our enemy. The mainstream media doesn’t worship that same God we do. The media worships a God that they believe is in charge and he’s on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Bright, who is one of the better-known names seeking the seat, lost re-election to the state senate in 2016 after mounting an unsuccessful 2014 primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham. In that 2014 campaign, he raffled off a Ruger 9mm handgun and an AR-15 to demonstrate that he was “THE pro-gun” candidate in the race.