Major newspapers and cable and broadcast media have ignored Louisiana’s passage of a law that makes it a crime for journalists to publicly identify concealed handgun permit holders or applicants.

On June 19, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) signed a bill [2] that sets penalties of up to six months in jail [3] and $10,000 for those who publish ‘any information regarding the identity of any person who applied for or received a concealed handgun permit.’ The law includes exceptions for cases in which the concealed handgun holder is charged with a felony offense involving the use of a handgun.

Supporters cited [4] as their rationale for proposing the law a New York paper’s controversial [5] Decemberpublication [6] of a Google map that featured the names and addresses of local handgun permit holders, saying that the legislation was necessary to prevent local media outlets from publishing similar information. Most states, including Louisiana, have laws that make such information confidential [7], but Alabama is the only other state [8] that currently makes publication of that information illegal subject to a penalty.

The law’s passage comes during a furious debate over whether the federal government infringed upon freedom of the press [9] by naming a reporter […]