Blake Miguez, Louisiana Representative for the 49th District, is no stranger to fighting for the second amendment rights of Louisiana’s citizens.

Recently, Miguez, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, became aware of a problem regarding the fees collected for concealed carry permits by the Louisiana State Police and crafted legislation to direct those unused funds to the creation of firearm safety videos that cover a variety of topics.

“The State Police are in charge of administering the concealed carry program, so I started to dig into their budget to find out how much they collected in fees,” Miguez explained. “Ballpark, they collect about $4.5 million in fees every year and I found that they only spend about $2.5 million to run that division.”

Miguez said that he learned early in his legal career that fees and taxes are different, and wanted to fix the problem by providing gun owners with value for their money.

“Early on, I learned that a fee is different from a tax. A tax is something that the government charges that can be used for anything, but a fee is supposed to be charged for a specific service,” he said. “Anything in excess of that is a tax, and I can only assume the excess money was going to the State Police’s general fund. We had a lot of complaints about law-abiding citizens not knowing the law or following the law correctly. I wanted to figure out how much it would cost to take a program that’s very similar to the concealed carry program and law enforcement training about gun laws and put it up on the State Police’s website and make it free to the public. We found out that it would only cost $20 or $30 thousand dollars for them to write the program, shoot the videos, and put them online.”

With the costs well under the annual budgetary surplus from permit fees, Miguez wasted little time in drafting legislation to get the process started.

“I passed the Louisiana Firearms Safety Awareness Act, which the governor signed into law. The Act requires the State Police to implement that and they’re in the process now of making a 2-hour long program with 15-minute sessions that will cover each pertinent topic that is covered in the concealed carry class. Somebody who just purchased a firearm for home defense or somebody who wants to know the laws can go online and watch these videos and have all the information they would have if they went and paid for a class. It’s another opportunity to promote responsible and safe gun ownership.”

Gun rights are very close to Miguez’s heart. As a long-time competitive shooter, Miguez has won several national and international titles and been featured on three season of History Channel’s Top Shot. Putting the law-abiding citizens of Louisiana on even ground with those who don’t follow the laws was a motivator for Miguez to get the training videos created.

“I had a legislator ask if I was trying to make online training be the only thing required for you to get a permit,” Miguez explained. “I told him that we don’t need any training or permission and there shouldn’t be any fees to exercise your rights, which is called ‘constitutional carry’. All I’m doing here is, whether (the legislature) passes constitutional carry or not, is promoting gun safety and making sure that law abiding citizens are being as safe as possible with their firearms. Criminals don’t follow the law and they couldn’t care less about gun laws. Law-abiding citizens are at a disadvantage because they do follow the gun laws, so I want to make sure they are on an equal playing field so that they can defend themselves and their loved ones.”

Miguez was also instrumental in passing a version of constitutional carry into law this year, allowing active duty service members and National Guard soldiers, along with honorably discharged veterans, to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. While there isn’t a timeline for expanding that legislation to all citizens, Miguez will surely continue his push to protect Louisiana’s gun rights.

“You have a right to carry a firearm concealed in your home or in your car and you don’t need any kind of permit, and you can also carry a firearm openly in Louisiana and you don’t need a permit or permission from the government,” Miguez said about the current carry laws.

“Basically, if you’re wearing blue jeans and a tucked-in shirt with a gun strapped to your side like Barney Fife, you’re legal. If you’re a law-abiding citizen who is not prohibited from carrying a firearm and you throw on a sports coat over the gun, you become illegal. What makes it any more unsafe for that law-abiding citizen? For me, I’d prefer an individual to have his firearm concealed because I don’t want to put other people who may not have firearms in their life into an uneasy situation. Your grandmother in the grocery line at Wal-Mart probably doesn’t want to look back and see folks that she doesn’t know with firearms exposed on their sides like the wild west. If they concealed the firearm and she had no idea it was there, she’d go on about her day with no idea unless that firearm would have to be used legally. I don’t want criminals to know who has the guns, maybe they’ll reconsider their malicious acts if they know the next innocent victim they choose to terrorize might have a firearm.”

The Louisiana State Police did not respond to requests for an updated timeline for when the videos would be released, but Miguez is confident that they would be coming soon.

Miguez will continue his legislative work when the 2023 Legislative Session begins in April but before then, he will travel to Thailand to represent Team USA in the 2022 IPSC Handgun World Shoot XIX at the end of the month.

The Daily Iberian will feature Miguez’s history as a top competitor in the Sunday, Nov. 13 paper, as well as provide up-to-date performance coverage of the competition once it begins.