Louisiana law to get guns away from abusers has flaws

A Louisiana law affirmed by the US Supreme Court last month is meant to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers — and in doing so, protect victims from injury or death.

But last year, in hundreds of cases, abusers held on to their weapons, according to data submitted by sheriffs’ offices to a state commission. In some parishes, a report by the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement suggests flaws in enforcement of the state’s gun dispossession laws:

East Baton Rouge reported receiving 1,271 court-issued “gun transfer” orders, and the vast majority of those cases involved defendants who admitted to owning guns. Yet just 51 guns were transferred that year.
Lafayette reported 624 transfer orders, and most of those cases involved defendants who owned guns. Just 17 guns were transferred.

What’s more, under state law, it’s up to the defendant to admit to owning a gun in the first place, and many do not, advocates charge.

Although former legislators defended the laws in interviews, some advocates say the data is proof of what can happen when flawed legislation meets inadequate enforcement.

“Any group that we talk to will acknowledge that the implementation (of the law) is, I guess, piecemeal,” said Mariah Wineski, executive director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which helped craft the law.

“Some parishes are doing it really well, and some parishes are not doing it at all, and some parishes are still kind of struggling to find a good way to do it.”

In response to multiple requests for comment on the state’s gun transfer laws, Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Michael Ranatza provided a statement:

“Sheriffs stand ready to enforce orders of the court under this law,” he said. “A sheriff cannot impose transferring firearms to a sheriff’s office without an order by a court of competent jurisdiction in the matter at hand.”

The sheriffs’ association did not respond to a question about discrepancies in the number of court orders issued and guns surrendered.

Problems with law, implementation

The Supreme Court in June upheld Louisiana’s right to its protection laws, overturning the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled last year that pulling guns away from abusers amounted to a violation of the Second Amendment.

Those laws were passed in response to a dire problem: The state consistently leads the nation in domestic homicides, rating in the top five nationwide almost every year since 1997, according to state health officials.

Per the rules, passed in 2014 and revised multiple times in the past decade, judges must order defendants in certain domestic violence cases to give up any guns they own, usually for either 10 years after a conviction or for the duration of a protective order. Sheriffs then track who surrenders their guns. Sheriffs must also report that data to the state law enforcement commission, in a bid to see how often the law is followed.

The report, published online in March and updated this month after a reporter flagged missing figures, covers the first full year of data under the reporting requirement.

It illustrates issues with the system. A big one: Defendants must self-report if they have a gun.

“There have been instances where this abuser used a firearm in committing the offense against a victim and then when in court, if asked if he has any firearms, says ‘No.’ And nobody presses him on it,” Wineski said.

In New Orleans in 2021, Kyren Brown threatened his girlfriend with a handgun after striking her twice with his fists. In court hours after his arrest, he swore to a judge that he possessed no firearms. Nine days later, he shot the same woman in the back of her head, court and arrest records show. (Last year, Orleans Parish reported 21 court orders involving defendants with guns and 45 gun transfers.)

When defendants admit to owning a gun, some surrender their guns to sheriffs. But they can also choose, under the law, to give them to third parties for safekeeping. That’s problematic if those parties return those guns later.

‘It should work’

Another issue: New Orleans City Councilmember JP Morrell, a former state senator who helped craft the rules, said that the law reflects the fact that sheriffs “didn’t want to be put in the position of going into homes and seizing firearms.”

Instead, if someone admits to having a gun but doesn’t surrender it, the sheriff notifies the court, which can then hold the person in contempt.

“Whenever there is an order and the defendant doesn’t comply, we contact the judge’s office and advise of the noncompliance. The court handles it from there,” said a spokesperson from the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office.

An officer can arrest someone who is carrying a gun illegally, but that officer would need to check for firearm prohibitions by running a criminal history or searching the Louisiana Protective Order Registry. That doesn’t always happen. So too can a judge issue a search warrant of a defendant’s home in a specific case, but only if they have reason to believe a defendant lied about not having a firearm.

The process can also prove ineffective for other reasons. In a statement, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office said it only oversaw the transfer of 17 guns last year because paperwork sent in from the courts was incomplete, some defendants lived in other parishes, and because of other factors.

Sheriffs’ reports to the law enforcement commission — a new requirement aimed at adding transparency and teeth to the process — have also had problems. For example, last year’s report shows far more firearm transfer orders than guns transferred in Ascension and St. Bernard parishes. When asked about the discrepancy, an Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said the commission mixed up its numbers, a claim commission officials disputed.

An attorney for the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Office said the agency reported its own data incorrectly and plans to submit updated numbers — numbers that paint a far rosier picture.

Still, Wineski pointed to the fact that over 900 guns were surrendered last year as proof that the system, though flawed, has protected victims.

Morrell, too, defended the rules. “If all the parties are following the law as it’s drafted, it should work,” he said.

Such has been the case in Lafourche, its sheriff’s office contends. That sheriff’s office played a key role in crafting the state’s domestic violence gun transfer laws, and helped other sheriffs around the state implement them. It saw 10 domestic violence transfer orders involving defendants with guns last year, and oversaw the transfer of 9 guns.

“We in Lafourche flag the individuals in our computer system,” said Lt. Valerie Martinez-Jordan. “So, we eventually get collateral arrests — meaning they run a stop sign, they get stopped, they get found with a gun, they get arrested for possessing firearms.”

Symptom of a bigger problem?

Morrell worked with New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno, who is expected to run for New Orleans mayor next year, to pass the laws when both served in the Legislature.

In an interview, Moreno said it took years of negotiations with law enforcement, courts and gun-rights groups to “hammer out all the details and get it right.” Now, she says, “all of the legal tools necessary” are there.

She charged that failure to implement the laws is a symptom of a larger problem: The criminal justice system doesn’t take domestic violence seriously.

“You still do have some within the criminal justice system who say, ‘You know these cases, why does it even matter? She’s just going to go back to him.’ “I hear that so often,” she said.

“We just need, across the state, the criminal justice system as a whole to really utilize these laws and enforce these laws correctly.”