The Associated Press
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) - People don’t need a permit to carry a loaded handgun in a vehicle unless the handgun is “truly concealed,” according to an opinion from Attorney General Larry Long.
Legislative actions showed that lawmakers “did not intend to require a license or a permit to carry a handgun in a vehicle if any part of the firearm is capable of being seen,” Long said in his decision last month.
That reasoning was correct, according to state Rep. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, who had asked Long for the opinion.
“His interpretation of the law was basically what I had read it to be and what I had tried to convince the South Dakota Gun Owners that it was saying,” Rhoden said.
Rhoden said the question arose from a dispute with the South Dakota Gun Owners during the 2004 Legislature. The group backed a bill it said would repeal the law requiring a concealed-weapons permit to carry a gun in a vehicle unless the gun is unloaded and stowed in a closed compartment.
The group’s newsletter quoted Capt. Bill Armstrong of Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, who said that if a handgun is inside a vehicle, it is considered concealed.
Later, Armstrong said his earlier interpretation was incorrect.
Rhoden said, “As I talked to more and more people, there was more than just one law enforcement officer that had the wrong interpretation of that law.”
Long said he wrote the opinion because some South Dakota law officers disagree about the concealed-weapons laws.
Long said the 1985 Legislature defined “concealed” as “any firearm that is totally hidden from view. If any part of the firearm is capable of being seen, it is not concealed.”