The Advocate: This Louisiana bipartisan law is aimed at curbing gun violence

BY SAM KARLIN | Staff writer | Aug 14, 2023

Mandie Landry’s recent effort to pass a bill addressing gun violence got off to a rocky start.

One day in January, Landry, a progressive New Orleans Democrat, found herself at the center of a vitriolic online debate. In response to a tweet about the failure of another gun measure she had proposed, she argued for a law holding people who leave guns in cars liable for violence that ensues after their guns are stolen.

“We know people break into cars bc they’re looking for guns — & they find them,” she wrote. “Then the stolen guns are used to commit violent crimes. This isn’t hard, we know what’s happening.”

State Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, photographed in New Orleans on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE

The tweet set off a heated debate, and several of Landry’s conservative Republican colleagues posted tart responses.

As the argument raged, Landry dug deeper into gun policy, and eventually found an approach that might actually gain bipartisan support on an emotional issue where shared opinion is rare.

The idea, which Landry proposed in the recently concluded legislative session, is to incentivize people to buy gun safety devices like lock boxes or gun safes that will allow them to store weapons safely. Proponents say that will make it harder for people to steal guns out of cars and limit the number of children who inadvertently get their hands on dangerous weapons.

“I thought, 'I don’t know how people could be against that,'” Landry said in a recent interview at a restaurant near her Uptown New Orleans home.

Remarkably, Landry got her bill through the Legislature without a single “no” vote. Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, signed it into law in June.

To be sure, the bill is a small step. It provides a $500 tax credit to people who buy gun safety devices and expires in 2027. The state caps the amount of credits at $500,000 a year in total. In other words, it’s hardly the type of transformational gun legislation that Landry or supporters would like to see.

The problem of gun violence is particularly acute in Louisiana, but the Legislature has largely rejected efforts to restrict gun sales. In fact, lawmakers have routinely advanced bills making it easier for people to buy guns.

The state has no law requiring gun owners to secure firearms or purchase locking devices. And many Louisiana gun owners don’t store their weapons safely: Louisiana has had the most accidental shootings by children in the nation in recent years, according to one gun safety group, and another study found the problem is worsening.

Still, in a Legislature where partisanship and controversy has sucked up much of the oxygen in recent years, the passage of Landry’s bill was notable.

First term blues

Landry began her term, in 2020, as a somewhat polarizing member, with a strong progressive persona. But she found herself warring with Republicans regularly, and she struggled to get bills through the process in a Legislature where Republicans are dominant. During the height of the pandemic, Landry lambasted many of her Republican colleagues for refusing to take protective measures like wearing masks, especially after a new state House member died from complications of the virus.

State Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, photographed in New Orleans on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. (Photo by Brett Duke, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE

Tensions ran high, she said.

In the years since, Landry said she has learned how to better navigate the building, with its many arcane conventions. For instance, before bringing the gun lock bill, she made sure to first talk to the important players. She also said she developed a better relationship with outgoing House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, a Republican who won the gavel with support from Democrats.

“No one tells you how to do this,” Landry said. “You just trip and find it. I thought I would go up and convince them with my great arguments.”

Lawmakers often claim the Legislature doesn’t have the same type of bitter partisanship that has gridlocked the U.S. Congress for years.

But such party-line bickering has increasingly become a mainstay in Baton Rouge. The Freedom Caucus, representing the right wing of Congress, recently started a branch in the Louisiana Legislature. Culture-war issues have dominated headlines at the statehouse for several years, with much of the energy of the last session focused on LGBTQ+ issues.

Speaker Pro Tem Tanner Magee, a Houma Republican, recently told reporters he wasn’t running for reelection in part because of a “toxic stew” of partisanship at the state Capitol.

Tom Costanza, who lobbies for the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops on issues like the death penalty, abortion and poverty, showed up to support Landry’s bill through the process. He said it struck him as a common-sense, bipartisan approach to a dicey issue.

“For us, it’s in the larger context of gun prevention and firearms and gun violence, which has an incredible human and societal cost,” he said.

Peter Robins Brown, executive director of the progressive nonprofit Louisiana Progress, said the idea that a left-leaning legislator like Landry could carry a gun bill through the Republican-dominated Legislature might seem counterintuitive.

In fact, he said, it “speaks to two important, relatively nonpartisan issues.”

“One, everyone recognizes that better gun safety is necessary, especially with the excessive gun violence in our state,” he said. “And two, the Louisiana Legislature loves handing out tax credits as a way of superficially ‘solving’ deep systemic problems.”