[6] Initially, he studied engineering at University, his father having discouraged a career as a doctor due to its time commitments; he often went to the early 5:15 a.m. mass in case of a later medical emergency.

[7] However, after two years, Weiss switched to studying medicine, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1925 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

It was while in Europe that Weiss bought a FN Model 1910 pistol for $25 (equivalent to approximately $146 in 2023[9]) that he allegedly used in the Long assassination.

[11][clarification needed] On September 8, 1935, Carl Weiss confronted and shot Huey Long in the Capitol building in Baton Rouge.

However, this view is not accepted by Louisiana State University Professor T. Harry Williams, who writes in his 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Long: The suggestion that Huey might have been hit by a wild shot or a ricochet from the guns of the guards had been advanced previously by various individuals, but no one had taken it very seriously, for unless all the witnesses to the event were lying or mistaken, only four shots had been fired while Huey was still in the corridor, the two from Weiss's pistol that struck Huey and Roden's wristwatch, respectively, and the two from the revolvers of Roden and Coleman that dropped Weiss.

[19]With the approval of the family, the remains of Weiss were exhumed in 1991 and examined by James Starrs, a forensic scientist at George Washington University.

[20] The character of Adam Stanton in Robert Penn Warren's fictitious All the King's Men is partially based on Weiss.

[citation needed] In her 1993 memoir, Marguerite Young mentions the murder of Huey Long and how she used to dance with Weiss as a college girl at Louisiana State University.

[21] Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway suffered a severe gash to his forehead when a skylight fell on him in March 1928 in his Paris apartment.