SC: Guns for Guards

A defense contractor in South Carolina has donated several dozen .40 caliber semiautomatic pistols to the state’s prisons department.
   
Corrections Department spokesman Josh Gelinas said Friday that Columbia-based FN Manufacturing LLC donated 70 of the weapons after learning about the agency’s budget issues and need for new handguns.
   
Corrections officers who man exterior security posts, transport inmates outside of prisons and respond to disturbances carry guns.
   
Gelinas says officers are using revolvers so old that gun makers no longer produce replacement parts.
   
FN is a subsidiary of FN Herstal of Belgium. The company makes the popular M-16 rifle, which is carried by almost every GI.