It’s become something of a Mardi Gras tradition for New Orleans police officers to make dozens of arrests of people — mostly Black men — who are charged with illegally carrying firearms within the city.
For the last two years, the New Orleans Police Department has arrested more people for gun-related offenses during Mardi Gras week than any other time of the year.
On Mardi Gras Day 2023, cops arrested more people on gun-related charges than any other day in the previous 13 years — 40 people, all of them Black.
Last year, gun arrests peaked the Saturday of Mardi Gras weekend, with police arresting 39 people. All but three of them were Black men.
NOPD officials have touted the department’s aggressive enforcement as necessary for keeping the city safe during a time when large crowds gather throughout the city and tourists pile in from out of town. At the same time, advocates and public defenders point to the racial disparities in arrests, seeing it as evidence of ineffective, biased enforcement. “Walking around and looking at people and profiling whether or not they may have a weapon isn’t the thing that’s going to keep us all safe this season or outside of the season,” said Sarah Omojola, director of Vera Louisiana’s office in New Orleans.
But this year, things could be different, because Louisiana state law now allows permitless carrying of concealed weapons.
Gun owners in Louisiana no longer need to have a permit if they want to carry a concealed weapon, thanks to a measure passed last year by the state legislature. That permit process required a state application, a demonstration of proper training, and a fee. But since the requirement was lifted, as of July 4th, anyone in Louisiana over the age of 18 can carry a concealed weapon without a permit, as long as they haven’t been convicted of certain felonies.
That means that police can no longer stop people simply due to suspicion that they are carrying concealed weapons without a permit.
But a major question remains: is it legal to carry a concealed handgun while watching a parade? There is no clear answer to that, among the usual people who weigh in on gun legislation: lawmakers, law enforcement, concealed-carry advocates, and the courts.
Police: ‘We will arrest you.’ Legislators make attempts to change law.
Historically, there seems to have be no gray area for NOPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick. “If a gun is brought to any of these festivities, we will arrest you and you will go to jail,” she warned last year, according to a Fox 8 news report.
State law regulating concealed weapons prohibits concealed guns from being carried in certain places, including “a parade or demonstration for which a permit is issued by a governmental entity.” But a wide-ranging group of people – including a state representative who last year introduced tighter gun regulations on parade routes and concealed-carry instructors across Louisiana – interpreted that law as only applying to people riding in the parade — not people who are attending.
Another statute prohibits the illegal carrying of a firearm “used in the commission of a crime of violence” within 1,000 feet of a parade. But that does not make it a crime to legally carry any other concealed weapon near a parade.
Over the years, lawmakers have attempted several times to change state law to clearly bar attendees of parades from carrying a concealed firearm.
So far, all those efforts have failed.
In 2004, Sen. Diana Bajoie (D-New Orleans) filed a bill that would have banned the carrying of any firearm at a parade. Earlier in the session, her New Orleans colleague Rep. Jeff Arnold (D-Algiers) had filed a similar bill that was shot down in committee by the NRA, gun-rights advocates and colleagues from the other side of the aisle, including Rep. Danny Martiny (R-Kenner) who said it “was way too broadly drawn” and would force law-abiding parade-goers to disarm.
When Bajoie’s bill faced similar criticism, it was amended before final passage to prohibit only the illegal carrying of a firearm used in the commission of a crime of violence within 1,000 feet of a parade.
“Carrying a weapon is not affected; just the use of the weapon is a crime,” Martiny said, after the amended bill passed out of the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice, which he chaired.
In 2009, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal vetoed a measure that would have removed the provision connecting the illegal weapon to a crime of violence. The vetoed law change would have made it illegal to carry a concealed firearm within 1,000 feet of a parade.
The provision “removes this important provision and criminalizes certain acts of mere possession,” Jindal wrote in his veto letter, noting that the National Rifle Association had raised concerns with the bill.
More recently, last year, Rep. Mandie Landry (D-New Orleans) brought a measure that would have made it illegal to carry a concealed weapon within 100 feet of a parade route without a permit. Landry specifically noted that the current ban on concealed weapons only applies to parade riders — not spectators.
Landry’s bill passed out of committee but was voted down on the house floor.
Meanwhile, some cities — including New Orleans — have their own ordinances on the books that target carrying weapons on parade routes. But a recent change in state law blocked those local ordinances from having any effect. A bill brought by Sen. Blake Miguez (R-New Iberia) and passed by the legislature last year declared any local firearm ordinance more restrictive than state law to be “null and void, and of no effect.”
Fourth Circuit ruling prompts confusion
Despite Rep. Mandie Landry’s and others interpretation that current law does not prohibit people from carrying a concealed weapon on a parade route, a 2024 ruling by Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal — which covers Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines parishes — calls that interpretation into question.
The case involved a man who was arrested in New Orleans during Carnival last year, was charged with carrying a weapon while in the possession of a controlled dangerous substance. But the defendant argued that NOPD did not have reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop in the first place.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit held that police did have reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop, because “concealed firearms are not legally permitted on a parade route,” citing the state statute that outlines concealed-carry regulations.
The ruling – which did not provide any analysis of the law, nor a discussion of the legislative history suggesting otherwise – has prompted some confusion, both from lawmakers and Second Amendment gun-rights advocates.
“I’m not sure that I would hang my hat on that case if I were the police,” said Dan Zelenka, an attorney who is president of the Louisiana Shooting Association. “But the flip side to that is it’s out there. So I’m not sure I would carry a gun and watch a parade either, right? You tell me where we’re at, because I’m befuddled.”
For decades, concealed-carry instructors around the state have advised applicants that it was only illegal to carry if they are in a parade, not attending as a spectator, Zelenka said.
Rep. Mandie Landry said that she’d understood that current law does not prohibit someone from carrying a concealed weapon at a parade, which is why she brought her bill last year.
“I tried to get it prohibited, and they said ‘No,’” Landry said, describing a back-and-forth with her colleagues in the Louisiana House of Representatives.
“They’re like, ‘What if I need it to defend myself?’”
“I said: ‘You shouldn’t go to parades.’
Landry is still resolved to push for further changes. Louisiana statutes related to guns“are contradictory, messy, and need to be revised,” she said.
Still, the Fourth Circuit ruling makes it conceivable that the prohibition is already part of state law, she said. “There is enough wiggle room there that you could argue it for sure.”
Law enforcement making parade arrests, but not discussing gun law
Louisiana law-enforcement officials have been tight-lipped about how they interpret state law, especially given the Fourth Circuit decision.
Despite previous statements by Kirkpatrick, NOPD did not respond to specific questions from The Lens regarding their interpretation of state law. Instead, they pointed to the local ordinances that apply to carrying weapons at a parade.
When asked about the state pre-emption law, which appears to nullify those local ordinances, a spokesperson wrote simply that “NOPD enforces applicable laws in accordance with public safety priorities and legislative guidance.”
Louisiana State Police “enforces these laws based on the details specified in the statutes,” said a spokesperson, who did not elaborate on the agency’s interpretation of how the statute applies to individuals watching parades while carrying a concealed weapon.
In at least one recent gun arrest out of New Orleans, police officers described permitted parades as “no firearm events,” justifying the stop because of an “L-shaped object” they spotted in the suspect’s waistband.
Even without a law specifically banning carrying a concealed weapon at a parade, there are still many other reasons police officers can stop someone they believe is carrying a weapon. State law prohibits anyone with a blood-alcohol level above .05 from carrying a gun — less than the .08 measure used for the crime of drunk driving. Someone can be also stopped for negligent carrying of a concealed firearm if police have “a reasonable suspicion that the handgun may discharge.”
And firearm-free zones extend out 1,000 feet from any school in New Orleans, encompassing large swaths of the city, including portions of many common parade routes. Parades with school marching bands could also be considered “school-sponsored functions,” where firearms are banned, said Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.
Given the racially disparate enforcement of gun laws, and a recent decline in crime, Sarah Omojola with the Vera Institute of Justice in New Orleans urged city leaders to focus on strategies other than arrests and prosecutions to decrease violence, such as ‘credible messenger’ violence-interrupter programs.
“Walking around and looking at people and profiling whether or not they may have a weapon isn’t the thing that’s going to keep us all safe this season, or outside of the season,” she said.