The state of Louisiana saw the passage of a bill Tuesday that allows residents to carry concealed handguns without a permit.
This constitutional-carry law, which has received final approval from lawmakers and was signed Tuesday by Governor Jeff Landry, marking a significant shift in gun legislation in the state.
The bill allowing permitless concealed carry in Louisiana, Senate Bill 1, has undergone a rigorous legislative process to reach its final approval.
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After passing the Senate, it received the green light from the Louisiana House of Representatives. Representative Mike Johnson, a Republican from Pineville, played a pivotal role in carrying the bill in the lower chamber.
With Landry’s signature, Louisiana becomes the 28th state to adopt “permitless carry.”
“Louisiana lawmakers and Gov. Landry have taken a bold step for public safety,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said. “Meanwhile, legislatures and governors in the remaining 22 holdout states are signaling that they do not trust their citizens with the most fundamental right of all, the right of self-defense. What a shameful message to telegraph to the people they are elected to serve.”
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Louisiana now joins Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming where Constitutional Carry is the law. The Louisiana law fittingly becomes effective July 4.
“At the time of the Founding,” Gottlieb noted, “citizens of the newly-established United States did not need permits to carry firearms for personal protection. They would have considered such a requirement to be absurd. You should not need a government permit to exercise a constitutionally enshrined right. Today, more than half of the states have returned to this baseline of liberty, and we can only hope that the remaining states will soon amend their narrow attitudes about Second Amendment rights.
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