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It just doesn't seem possible that you can't get a tattoo in South Carolina.
Nowhere in the country can you mess up as royally as you can in South Carolina. You can do anything. You can shoot fireworks and play the lottery and raise the Confederate flag on the State House grounds and put mustard in your barbecue sauce.
The very symbol of the state university conjures up the fine sport of cockfighting. (Not to mention providing college football's dirtiest catchphrase.)
How can South Carolina ban tattoos? You'd think you couldn't live there without one.
But the Palmetto State has outlawed tattoo parlors for decades. The only other state that bans them is Oklahoma. (People in Texas probably say, "You can't get a tattoo in Oklahoma? You can do anything in Oklahoma!")
It's not that people in South Carolina haven't tried.
Every year since 1994, state Sen. Bill Mescher _ a Charleston-area Republican _ has introduced a bill to allow tattooing.