In Louisiana, no need to purchase a permit, register, or get a license for a handgun, shotgun,rifle

[pnwmom]

You can openly carry a handgun without a permit but you do need a permit to conceal-carry a handgun.

https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-gun-laws/louisiana/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Louisiana

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. There's still the federal background check requirement. Was Houser qualified or disqualified?

[Calista241]

2. According to the press conference this afternoon...

He applied for and failed to get a concealed carry license. Apparently there was an arrest for domestic violence and a separate incident for arson in his past.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. Then, under the Lautenburg Amendment, he was not legally eligible to own a gun.

[EL34x4]

58. Only if he was convicted.

I'm not finding that he was ever convicted of a domestic violence charge. He was also charged with arson. I'm not reading that he was convicted of that charge either.

However, he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. This means he lied on his 4473 form, which is a felony. Unfortunately, many of the questions on this form aren't easily verifiable and rely on the honor system.

[pnwmom]

5. But it was still fine for him to carry it unconcealed. Until he used it. n/t

[Calista241]

14. No. If they caught him carrying any firearm, he would have been charged with a felony.

He was ineligible to own or purchase a firearm.

[pnwmom]

18. Doesn't help much after the fact. n/t

[Igel]

20. Few laws to prevent a crime work after the fact.

Doesn't matter if it's handgun possession or drunk driving.

That's pretty much a universal. The best you get after the fact is punishment or rehab, recompense or taking the perp out of circulation.

Can't unring the bell.

[pnwmom]

3. And don't forget how that works. If they can't complete a background check in 3 days,

(which happens sometimes, especially when the person has changed localities), the applicant gets the gun.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. Which is weird because I can get 3 credit bureaus to report entire financial histories in minutes.

[pnwmom]

8. One of the recent murderers-with-guns (I forget which one -- not the latest) slipped through

that crack. So it does happen.

On top of that, there are privacy laws in connection with mental health. I wonder how that is handled with regard to background checks. I doubt that physicians are registering every patient with depression or drug issues. Don't you?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. I know there was a short-lived effort to claim the Charleston shooter slipped through the cracks

but the reality is those responsible for managing the database screwed up.

Also, privacy laws do not require the mentally ill to go unreported if there is a belief they pose a threat to themselves or others. The just-convicted James Holmes was reported to the police by a university mental health professional in accordance with Colorado state law but the police elected to not act.

Meanwhile, in NJ a woman was being stalked by an ex-BF against whom she had a RO. She had applied for a gun permit but the controlling agency did not process her application within the 30 days mandated by law. She was still waiting on her permit when he stabbed her to death.

[jmowreader]

11. You may be thinking of Dylann Roof, but he used a different loophole

His dad gave him a .45 for his 21st birthday. The feds are trying to figure out if that was a bona fide gift, which is totally legal, or a straw purchase, which is a federal offense.

[TeddyR]

13. Nope

The story that the gun was a gift has been discredited. He legally purchased the gun (I believe using birthday money) but should not have been allowed to purchase the gun -- the folks running the background check system screwed up. Details here - http://wsls.com/2015/07/11/series-of-errors-allowed-dylan-roof-to-purchase-gun/

[B2G]

6. He was denied in Georgia

Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told the Ledger-Enquirer that Houser in 2006 was denied a pistol permit, and was served eviction papers March 25, 2014, while living on 32nd Street in Phenix City.

Read more here: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2015/07/24/3827356_sheriff-man-police-say-killed.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

[pnwmom]

9. Interesting. But no pistol permit is required in Louisiana. n/t

[TeddyR]

15. Correct

A lot of states don't require permits to purchase (including Virginia). But you have to pass a background check everywhere (unless of course you purchase from a private seller or illegally).

[pnwmom]

17. If they can't complete the check in 3 days you can get a gun anyway. The default favors the buyer.

And the private seller loophole is a large one.

[beevul]

21. Its not a loophole.

The federal government has already exercised power in pretty much every area of interstate commerce where guns are concerned. In doing so, they have defined 'interstate commerce', by their actions. Person to person sales, within the same state, is by definition, intrastate commerce, rather than interstate. Intra-state commerce, is not something that authority is granted to the federal government to have power over.

The states have the power, to require person to person background checks, however, the anti-gun movement has a tendency to torpedo their own ship in that regard, by adding things like 'assault eapon bans' and 'registration' and such to any legislation, more often than not.

[pnwmom]

22. By any conventional, non-legalistic definition, it is a loophole. It's an easy way

for a would-be purchaser to get around the requirement.

[beevul]

24. Nonsense.

Its like claiming that since Montana law doesn't apply to CO, CO is exploiting a loop hole on MJ.

Its jurisdictional.

Nothing 'loophole' about it.

[pnwmom]

28. Lots of people would disagree with you on that. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole

Gun show loophole

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gun show loophole is a U.S. political term referring to the sales of firearms to private buyers by private sellers at gun shows. This kind of sale doesn't require or allow the seller to perform a background check on the buyer, and doesn't require the seller to record the sale. The loophole refers to a perceived gap in the law with regard to sales or transfers of firearms between private citizens.[1] The term may also be referred to as the Brady bill loophole, the Brady law loophole, the gun law loophole, and the private sale loophole.

[beevul]

29. Yes, lots of people think the earth is 7000 years old too.

Calling something, x, even repeatedly, does not make it so.


On edit, from your own cite:

"The loophole refers to a perceived gap in the law..."

[Recursion]

38. Both "gun show" and "loophole" seem wrong to me there.

It has absolutely nothing to do with gun shows. And "loophole" to me suggests it was something somebody overlooked when drafting the law, rather than a very basic Constitutional limitation on Congressional power.

[hack89]

55. Do you understand what "perceived" means? Nt

[PoliticAverse]

33. With the Supreme Court's current loose interpretation of 'interstate commerce'

(as pretty much any commerce or anything affecting commerce) I don't think there would be
any stretch required for them to allow restrictions on private sales based on the commerce clause.

[beevul]

35. I just can't see it.

Although I do admit, it is a possibility.

Its would be a very dangerous thing, however, to do, imo.

People at large may just come to the conclusion that the rule of law is dead, and unlike Wickard , the PO'd demographic wouldn't just be one or three ticked off farmers.

And if transfer were defined as it has been recently, as handing a gun to a family member or borrowing a gun to a friend, there is NO commerce at all. I can't imagine how the court could wrap the commerce clause around that.

[TeddyR]

25. Agreed on both points

But there's no excuse for not being to complete a background check in three days. Mine took 20 minutes.

[Aerows]

12. I was right here after exiting a performance right down the block.

Saenger Theatre

A guy was flashing - I shit you not - a .45. I'm with my friends, and we had just left the theatre, and he motioned us on, "Not for you, dog".

Here we are in evening clothes, I'm in a damn dress, my friends in suits (and I'm kind of thankful that both of them were 6'5" and 6'6" respectively - I don't know how these tall white people gravitate to me).

It's a different world. Absolutely different, yet here you are leaving the Opera and somebody is flashing a .45 that would drop everybody.

[pnwmom]

16. "Not for you, dog"????? Wow. Who for, then?

There was a guy making a big production of handling his long gun in the parking lot of one of the nearby malls a few years ago. (I'm not enough of a gun person to know which kind it was.)

He didn't indicate the gun was "for" anyone -- he just did it to show he could. He scared lots of gun-less people while he stood up for his gun rights, and that apparently was the aim.

[TeddyR]

26. Yeah

Not a fan of open carry. Fail to see how it serves any purpose that isn't served by concealed carry other than to agitate people. Although on edit I should note that you can't really conceal carry a rifle or shotgun.

[packman]

19. Just another case of a law-abiding citizen

entitled to his rights until he did not become a law-abiding citizen. So tired of that shit, "every law-abiding citizen has the right to carry a gun" - of course, up to that instant when, for whatever reason, they decide to step over that line.

[beevul]

23. Except he wasn't.

He was a prohibited person, well before he shot anyone.

[packman]

37. Not to argue a fine point

True- he had a lot of issues and a history; however, he did buy the gun used legally and that is too fucked up to comprehend.

http://www.examiner.com/article/louisiana-gunman-bought-his-weapon-legally-despite-criminal-history

[beevul]

53. If we're arguing the fine points...

however, he did buy the gun used legally

No.

The seller presumably SOLD the weapon legally. It was legal for them to do so provided they ran a background check.

The buyer on the other hand, BOUGHT a gun illegally. He was a prohibited person, and by definition can not by law, buy or possess a firearm legally, whether from a pawn shop, or a gun store, or a newspaper add or a yard sale. Period.

As I say, IF were arguing the fine points...

[Logical]

27. Private sales prevent any gun purchase laws from doing anything useful. nt

[pnwmom]

30. So apply gun laws to private sales. n/t

[Logical]

31. Almost impossible. Gifting guns. Borrowing guns. Etc. I would have no issue with registering my.....

registering my guns. But idiotic paranoid gun nuts think the government will use it to collect their guns.

They are idiots, but armed idiots.

[sarisataka]

32. Right here on DU today

Don't even begin to pretend these could be prevented by anything other than outright taking of guns. If you don't support that, then you're happily complicit in all these murders.

As long as comments like this keep coming it will keep the idiotic paranoid gun nuts fighting tooth and nail; fellow happily complicit murder enabler

[Logical]

34. No dems in congress would even suggest banning or collecting guns. Unrealistic. nt

[sarisataka]

36. Propaganda need not be realistic

to be effective.

[pnwmom]

40. Those sound like the words of a pro-gun-at-any-cost person. n/t

[sarisataka]

44. Are you saying that perhaps

It is a false flag post? I don't believe so as they have been here awhile and clearly in the anti gun camp

[Recursion]

39. Unfortunately that would take cooperation from the states

The only realistic way to do that is for the states to adopt some kind of uniform commercial code for firearms. I'd love that. I'm also not holding my breath.

[Go Vols]

41. Good

Its not the guns,its the nuts.

Don't know how it is now, but we open carried in Mo. in the '90s when riding ATV's and never a problem,even when we rode to town.

[pnwmom]

42. With no controls how do you propose to keep them out of the hands of nuts? n/t

[Go Vols]

43. There are controls in place

some not adhered to though.
I grew up around loaded guns all over the house,they are tools.A corn scoop and a gun,+ more did my jobs,feeding a family.

[pnwmom]

45. If you grew up with loaded guns all over the house, your parents were beyond reckless

and it's lucky none of their children had a serious accident or worse.

I knew a family like that. All of their kids lived, but one of their visiting friends wasn't so lucky.

[Go Vols]

46. My god

I was forced to use farm implements that would kill too,including a gun.OMG the horror of growing up in the country.

[pnwmom]

47. My husband spent every summer on a family ranch.

But they weren't stupid enough to leave loaded guns around where unsupervised children could get to them.

[Go Vols]

48. children means what to you?

I knew what was going on at around 4-5 yrs old.

Most likely there were loaded guns around before I became aware of them,but like the corn scoop,it was /is a tool that I didn't want as a kid.

I think people start these threads because they don't know my/others path.

City folk know guns as being an inner city problem.Why shoot a gun in a city?

Country folks know guns to be a deterrent to animals that kill/eat their stock,plus food on the table.

Fuck if I know,I'll blame it on Raygun.

[pnwmom]

49. So you lived. So did a lot of people who smoked cigarettes for decades.

That doesn't mean leaving loaded guns around or smoking cigarettes is a smart thing to do.

Even if you live in a rural area, like these people:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/us/missouri-boy-shoots-baby-brother/

[Go Vols]

50. At this point in time

I will agree 100%.

[pnwmom]

51. Then I guess I didn't need to look for this.

A story I remember from a few months back. The poor boy -- having to live with the knowledge he killed his baby brother.

The sheriff says guns are "rampant" in their rural community. I wonder if this changed anyone's mind.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/20/us/missouri-boy-shoots-baby-brother/

[Go Vols]

52. I don't know what you need to look for

I stated fact.

I can post more dire news than you did above,it doesn't change my story.

I agreed with you above,am done.

[bluedigger]

54. They also don't search you at the state border.

Hauser's gun was bought in Alabama, was it not?

[Lee-Lee]

56. It was, but don't let facts get in the way of a good gun control fantasy

You can't buy prescription drug in Louisiana without a special permit called a prescription. You can't issue that permit unless your a licensed professional very heavily regulated and inspected by the Feds. Private sales of such drugs are totally banned under state and federal law.

So that should mean there isn't a prescription painkiller abuse problem in that state, correct?

I am amazed how people can at the same time see that drug prohibition is largely a failure due to there always being people who will supply to meet a demand regardless of laws- but they think somehow with guns it would work perfectly.

[NickB79]

57. Very few states require permits or registration for shotguns and rifles

Since they're used so rarely in crimes, that's not unusual.

The exception is pistol-gripped long guns (AR-15's, AK's, other "tactical" guns); many states treat those the same as handguns and do require a permit to purchase.