Concealed firearm bill moves ahead, red-flag law shunned in Louisiana

Anyone 18 and older in Louisiana could soon be allowed to carry a concealed firearm without a permit or training, but an attempt to keep guns away from people who could harm themselves or others has stalled in the Legislature.

Only one level of legislative approval remains for Senate Bill 1, which its author, Republican Sen. Blake Miguez, calls a “constitutional carry” proposal. The House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice gave its approval to the bill Monday, leaving only a vote in the full House — where it’s expected to pass — before it goes to Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk. 

The Republican governor has said he will sign Miguez’s bill into law.

Not long after the House committee vote, the Senate Committee of Judiciary C voted to defer a red-flag law, Senate Bill 14, which effectively shelves the legislation. Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, wrote the proposal taking into account the likely passage of the Miguez measure. It would have allowed district attorneys to petition a judge in instances where someone with a firearm is deemed a public threat. 

A judge could have then ruled that the person in question would not be allowed to carry a firearm and further determined that they undergo further evaluation to determine whether their weapon should be seized.

Gun rights groups, including the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America, opposed Carter’s bill. Miguez, who sits on Judiciary C, questioned whether the proposal was within the confines of the special session on crime policy. Carter said his legislation would allow DAs to step to help prevent suicides as well as domestic violence and other serious crimes. 

“We’ve adopted the most rigorous constitutional measures to make sure that the due process rights of those persons who could be affected by these orders are protected,” Carter said. “But this is also to make certain that we – our kids, the public – that we are protected from gun violence as well.” 

After hearing testimony from supporters of Carter’s proposal, Judiciary C Chairman Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, asked the committee to defer the bill.

“You did provide a lot of protection,” Morris told Carter, “but it still politicizes the issue in that, in certain areas of state, district attorneys might be very loose with trying to take guns away from people.” 

Nineteen states have so-called red-flag laws in effect to take weapons out of the hands of people deemed threats. Florida put such a law in place after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in which 17 people were killed and 17 others were injured. 

Broward County’s sheriff said his agency had been warned several times about the convicted shooter, Nikolas Cruz, who was reported to have had behavioral problems since his childhood.