Myrtle Beach plans resolution to help prevent mass shootings

Myrtle Beach City Council will consider a resolution to reach out to state and national officials for advice on stopping mass shootings.

“All that it means from my perspective is we would use the bully pulpit of the Myrtle Beach City Council to call on our congressional delegation in Washington to start talking about this in a serious way,” council member Mary Jeffcoat said in a phone interview.

She added that the resolution will likely not come up at the next city council meeting on June 28, and that she and other council members are still deciding on the document’s exact wording. Jeffcoat said the move is aimed at protecting the lives of law enforcement and first responders.

The move is a change from her position during the council’s meeting this Tuesday, when Jeffcoat suggested a resolution that would have urged a full federal ban on the sale of assault-style weapons. She said the idea was part of an “emotional outburst” after the recent shooting in Orlando, where a gunman killed 49 people in an LGBT nightclub and injured dozens more with two guns, including a semi-automatic AR-15.

“I probably spoke before I thought, and now I’m rethinking,” she said.

At the earlier meeting, Jeffcoat directed her frustration with recent violence into full-throated support for the restriction of assault-style gun sales.

“I am not questioning someone’s right to bear arms, to have a gun to protect themselves, but nobody needs an assault rifle to go hunting or to protect their home,” Jeffcoat said at that meeting.

Council member Michael Chestnut seconded Jeffcoat’s motion for a resolution during the meeting. He said he hopes people will be able to safely continue to enjoy Myrtle Beach.

“It just seems like every other time you turn around, there’s some kind of killing going on,” he said Tuesday.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Chestnut said he had not spoken with Jeffcoat since the council meeting, but that he still personally supports the idea of banning assault-style guns.

“Personally I don’t think that’s something that needs to be on the street or even in someone’s house, and that’s just me personally,” Chestnut said of guns like the AR-15. “That’s maybe a little drastic for some people, but those things are made to kill and they need to be in the military, and that’s where they should be — or law enforcement or something.”

This story was originally published June 15, 2016 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach plans resolution to help prevent mass shootings."