In 1971, at the age of thirty-three, Gunter was elected to the Louisiana House from District 27, where he remained until having been defeated in the 1991 nonpartisan blanket primary, commonly known as the jungle primary. Gunter acquired statewide attention for intemperate or even bizarre statements in debate. He opposed a bill introduced by Representative Don Bacque, an Independent from Lafayette, which would allow a wife to reject a husband's sexual advances. Gunter recalled his own wedding when his wife promised to "love, honor, and obey." When a woman marries a man, he said, "she knows what he is when she takes the oath, and if she doesn't like being roughed up, she can leave."