Louisiana Under 21 Carry Lawsuit: The School Zone Trap
It feels like every time I turn around, another state government is getting sued over the Second Amendment.
That is the new shape of this fight. The gun control battle is not really happening in legislatures anymore. It is happening in courtrooms. The question is no longer which bills get passed. It is which laws can survive constitutional scrutiny once somebody with good lawyers takes a run at them.
So after a while these filings start to blur together even if they shouldn't, but put this one down in the “18-20 yr old rights” bucket which continues to fill up.
On July 22, 2026, the Firearms Policy Coalition sued Louisiana over its rule that you have to be 21 to get a concealed handgun permit. On the surface that reads like a narrow complaint about young adults. It is not. Sitting inside the argument are two problems that should get the attention of anyone who carries without a permit, in any state, at any age.
What Was Actually Filed
The case is Pool v. Hodges, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, case number 6:26-cv-02650.
The plaintiffs are FPC and two of its members: Ella Pool, 19, of Lafayette, and Christian McDuffie, 18, of Youngsville. The defendant is Colonel Robert P. Hodges, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, sued in his official capacity because his agency is the one that issues permits.
FPC did not file and then settle in to wait. They moved for summary judgment the same day, which is a request for the court to rule on the law without holding a trial.
Worth stating plainly before we go further: this is a complaint, not a ruling. Louisiana gets to respond, a federal judge decides, and nothing about the law has changed yet.
The Setup
Louisiana went permitless in July 2024. Under La. R.S. 14:95(M), anyone 18 or older who is not otherwise prohibited from possessing a firearm can carry a concealed handgun in Louisiana without a permit.
The permit itself is a different story. The Louisiana Concealed Handgun Permit, issued under La. R.S. 40:1379.3, still requires an applicant to be 21.
So Louisiana created a category of adults who can legally carry but cannot legally obtain the piece of paper certifying that they can legally carry. For most everyday purposes, that gap does not matter.
For two specific purposes, it matters enormously.
Problem One: The Federal School Zone Trap
The federal Gun Free School Zones Act, 18 U.S.C. 922(q), makes it a federal crime to knowingly possess a firearm in a school zone. Federal law defines a school zone as the grounds of a public, parochial, or private school plus everything within 1,000 feet of those grounds, under 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(25).
There are exceptions. The one almost every armed citizen relies on is 922(q)(2)(B)(ii), which covers a person who is licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located.
Read that clause slowly, because two things fall out of it.
Permitless carry is not a license. Constitutional carry is the absence of a licensing requirement. There is no license, so there is nothing to trigger the exception.
Image generated via AI for educational purposes
Louisiana Fixed Its Half. It Could Not Fix the Federal Half.
Louisiana has its own 1,000 foot firearm free zone, under La. R.S. 14:95.2 and 14:95.6, and violating it is a felony carrying up to five years at hard labor.
When Louisiana went permitless, lawmakers updated the exception list in that state statute. La. R.S. 14:95.2(C)(9) now exempts Louisiana permit holders, holders of permits from states with Louisiana reciprocity, and people carrying under the permitless provision in 14:95(M).
Which means that under Louisiana law, an 18 year old carrying without a permit is clear of the state school zone rule.
Under federal law, that same 18 year old, standing in that same spot, on that same sidewalk, is committing a federal crime.
Louisiana cleaned up its own statute and had no authority to clean up the federal one, because the federal exception is built around a state issued license. Louisiana then refuses to issue that license to anyone under 21. The state effectively locked a federal door and kept the only key.
According to the complaint, Louisiana has more than 1,300 elementary and secondary schools. Every one of them radiates a 1,000 foot circle. None of those circles are marked, posted, or mapped. In any decent sized city they overlap into a mesh that covers roads, neighborhoods, and most of the movement that makes up an ordinary day.
The Bigger Lesson, and It Is Not About Being 21
Set the age question aside for a minute, because this next part applies directly to a lot of you.
If you carry under constitutional carry authority in a permitless state, and you never bothered to go get the permit, you are exposed to the Gun Free School Zones Act every single time you drive past an elementary school with a gun on your hip.
Not “technically” exposed. Actually exposed. A federal offense punishable by up to five years.
Of course its probably unlikely you'll be “caught” or prosecuted but it is something to keep in mind and an advantage that comes from getting a permit in a state where you otherwise might not need one.
Problem Two: The Civil Immunity Gap
In 2024, Louisiana enacted La. R.S. 9:2793.12, which shields an “authorized person” from liability for damages for injury, death, or loss suffered by a perpetrator when that harm results from a justified use of force or self defense through the discharge of a firearm.
Sounds like it covers every armed citizen in the state. It does not.
Subsection A defines “authorized person” as someone holding a valid concealed handgun permit under La. R.S. 40:1379.1, 1379.1.1, 1379.3, or 1379.3.2, along with qualified law enforcement officers and a few other narrow categories. A second paragraph extends it to active duty and reserve military members, Louisiana National Guard members, and honorably discharged veterans.
Look at what is not there. People carrying under 14:95(M), the permitless carry provision, are absent from the list.
That is hard to write off as a drafting accident. In the 2024 Regular Session, the legislature amended this exact immunity statute through Senate Bill 152, a bill whose stated subject was carrying concealed handguns lawfully without a permit. The only substantive change they made was swapping the word “handgun” for “firearm.” Meanwhile, they did write permitless carriers into the school zone exception. Lawmakers clearly knew how to include that group when they wanted to. They did it in one statute and skipped it in the other.
For 21+ adults you are offered the choice. Get a permit and receive those protections or don't and… don't. For someone 18-20 they don't get that choice.
The Legal Backdrop
FPC is not filing this one on a hunch. They are filing it into a circuit that has already spoken.
In January 2025, the Fifth Circuit decided Reese v. ATF, holding that peaceable 18 to 20 year old adults are part of “the People” protected by the Second Amendment, and striking down the federal ban on handgun and handgun ammunition sales to that age group. Louisiana sits in the Fifth Circuit. That decision is binding there.
Two more markers. The Third Circuit ruled for FPC in Lara, recognizing that 18 to 20 year old adults have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms, and the Supreme Court declined to hear Pennsylvania's appeal, which left that win standing. The Eighth Circuit landed in the same place in Worth.
That track record is why FPC moved for summary judgment on day one. Their position is that the hard doctrinal work is finished and this is cleanup.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has been aggressive on Second Amendment issues, which makes the state's response genuinely interesting to watch. Defending a 21 year old minimum in the circuit that decided Reese is not an enviable assignment.
The question of gun rights for 18-20 year olds has been one of the hottest topics of the last few years in our community. This is likely to be one more victory in a line of victories that will hopefully secure those rights for all adults in the not too distant future.