Which 2016 candidate's state has the strictest gun laws? - CBS News

The gunman behind last week's deadly shooting at a Louisiana movie theater, John Russell Houser, had an extensive history of mental illness - in 2008, he was even involuntarily committed to a mental facility in Georgia after threatening his family members. But during a visit to an Alabama pawnshop last year, Houser was still able to legally purchase the handgun he used to kill two people and injure nine others on Thursday evening.

And that, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, is a big problem.

"Here in Louisiana, we actually passed tougher laws a couple of years ago so that for example, if Houser had been involuntarily committed here in Louisiana, that information would have automatically, we would have reported that to the national background check system," Jindal told CBS News' "Face the Nation." "He wouldn't have been able to buy a gun. He wouldn't have been able to go into that pawn shop and buy a gun as he did in another state."

Jindal's suggested that if other states had followed Louisiana's lead in enacting stricter mental health screenings for gun sales, the deadly shooting last week may have been avoided.

"I think every state should strengthen their laws," he added. "We need to make sure that this information is being reported in the background system, that the background system is working. Absolutely in this instance, this man shouldn't have been able to buy a gun."

But is it true that Louisiana has a more scrupulous background check system than its neighboring states? And what about the other states whose sitting governors are running for president - Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin? What do the gun laws look like in those states? Here's a look:

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