The SC General Assembly passed H 3799 this year and the same became law in June 2016. By the time of this publication, August 2016, both SC SLED and GA DPS have updated their websites to recognize the changes in H3799.
What did H3799 change? This bill explicitly recognizes the concealed weapons permits issued by Georgia and North Carolina regardless of what training the states allow.
North Carolina Reciprocity
The new law does not change the status of concealed weapons permits in relation to North Carolina. South Carolina already recognized the permits issued by her Sister State to the north. However, the new law does safeguard that recognition in the event NC relaxed their requirements for issuing a concealed weapons permit.
Georgia Reciprocity
The refusal of SC to recognize GA concealed weapons permits, and the likewise refusal on behalf of GA, has been a pain for residents of the two states for quite some time now.
Historically, SC lawmakers took the stance that no concealed weapons permits should be recognized unless the bearer had been through both physical and legal training on the use of firearms. Georgia lawmakers view such requirements as an infringement upon the right to bear arms and do not require training for the issuance of a concealed weapons permit.
What Georgia did was refuse to recognize concealed weapons permits by any state that did not recognize their permits. Thus Georgia did not recognize SC permits because SC did not recognize Georgia permits.
After years of stalemate, SC finally decided to compromise by waiving the training requirement, but only for concealed weapons permits issued by Georgia or North Carolina. Thus, with the passage of H3799, South Carolina recognized Georgia permits.
With SC recognizing GA permits, GA started recognizing SC permits. Thus the holders of permits in both states benefited greatly from the legislation in South Carolina.
Other States
Unfortunately, this change in SC law is limited to only Georgia and North Carolina. Similarly situated states, as close as Alabama, are still not recognized in South Carolina. Fortunately Alabama recognizes SC permits regardless.
Several gun right organizations, such as SC Carry (full disclosure: I am a Board Member), are pushing to expand this recognition to all states. While the SC House is very firearms friendly, only time will tell how such measures fare in the SC Senate.