With Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s stunning victory in the gubernatorial jungle primary over the weekend, the state will soon have a GOP trifecta; majority control of both chambers of the legislature as well as the governor’s office. That should help clear the way for the passage of Constitutional Carry, though I’m not quite as confident as FPC’s Rob Romano is.

Louisiana will become the 28th permitless carry state next year. https://t.co/Ebci2UAQ96

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) October 15, 2023

I think this definitely improves the chances that Louisiana will become the 28th Constitutional Carry state in 2024, but it’s important to remember what happened with permitless carry this year. While the House overwhelmingly approved Rep. Danny McCormick’s bill, the legislation never got to the desk of Gov. John Bel Edwards because it died in the GOP-controlled State Senate back in early June.

House Bill 131 would have eliminated all training and permitting requirements to carry a concealed firearm, provided gun owners are over 21 and aren’t barred from owning a gun under state or federal law. But its sponsor, Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City, pulled the measure after lawmakers on the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee sought to amend it heavily.

Amendments proposed Tuesday by the committee would have let people carry concealed weapons only if they took education courses and were entered in a state database to show completion of those courses.

“My supporters wouldn’t want any required training or a government list that their name would go on,” McCormick told the committee.

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Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2021 vetoed similar legislation that both chambers had approved with veto-proof, two-thirds majorities. But when it came to overriding Edwards’ veto, the state Senate couldn’t corral enough votes.

The bill will likely come before the Legislature again in future years.

Oh, it’s definitely coming back. McCormick has made it clear that he’ll once again be introducing a permitless carry bill for the 2024 session. In fact, he tied that measure to a gun raffle he hosted in August as part of his re-election campaign. Like Landry, McCormick won the jungle primary in House District 1 outright over the weekend, pulling in 66% of the vote to Democrat Randall Liles’ 34%.

With McCormick heading back to Baton Rouge and Landry moving into the governor’s mansion, the pressure will be on state senators to finally get on board with permitless carry, especially since Landry made passage of the measure one of his campaign issues.

“The current governor of this state has vetoed constitutional carry but we’re going in and passing that,” Landry told Breitbart, referring to Democrat John Bel Edwards. “The problems are not the guns; the problems are cultural. The problems are broken families, the problems are poor educational opportunities, the problems are not supporting programs that teach the proper use and handling of firearms.”

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Landry told Breitbart that he would be “focused” as governor on strengthening Second Amendment rights in the state.

“I support further strengthening the rights of our citizens, their ability to exercise the Second Amendment of the constitution, and I will be focused on any way that we can strengthen that at the state level,” he told the news outlet.