Why does Austin hate the gun ban at the State Fair of Texas? Easy. It’s election time | Opinion
First of all, there is nothing wrong with letting licensed Texans carry concealed handguns at the State Fair.
But that decision should be totally up to the State Fair.
If you rent someplace for a paid, ticketed event, then you get to decide who gets in.
The Texas Legislature does not decide.
Neither do Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick or Attorney General Ken Paxton, no matter how many mean letters or tweets they send to get everybody all riled up.
Rarely is there a better example of the dim bulbs running Texas’ government.
Sixty Texas lawmakers signed a letter pounding their chests ferociously about Texans’ “Second Amendment Rights.”
Yes. They capitalized the “R” as if it’s from the Bible.
But those are the very same lawmakers who wrote Texas’ current laws.
They decide where Texans can carry or not carry a concealed handgun. They write the laws themselves. It’s not a Second Amendment case. And they left private leaseholders’ events private.
Patrick, always quick to lead a torch-wielding onslaught, chimed in.
On X.com, he wrote: “The Texas Senate has written and passed the strongest 2nd Amendment legislation in the country ... The issue is the State Fair of Texas and the City of Dallas banning law abiding citizens in Fair Park from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.”
I hate to break it to him.
But the Texas Senate does not need to write Second Amendment legislation.
It was written in 1789.
The Texas Senate only writes state laws licensing Texans to carry a handgun in some restricted areas, and about how businesses and schools should post signs explaining if Texans can’t carry a gun.
The State Fair of Texas is a private nonprofit leasing a Dallas city park. It has the property right to post any sign it wants.
That includes a sign banning guns.
Paxton, as always, is a special case.
His letter threatening a lawsuit against the city of Dallas seems to argue that the Fair can’t ban guns because it’s — too big?
But the letter completely contradicted his own office’s nonbinding legal opinion in 2016 allowing the nonprofit managers of the Fort Worth Zoo and the Dallas Zoo to post gun bans.
Last week, his bullying letter claimed those opinions somehow didn’t cover “the entirety of the 277-acre Fair Park.”
Look, Texas’ gun laws have been relaxed considerably since 2016.
The Texas Legislature has three true loves: God, oil and guns.
We know now that licensed handgun owners aren’t the problem in Texas. It’s careless owners who recklessly use guns. And the laws about carrying guns are way too complicated.
But if concealed handguns are allowed inside private, ticketed outdoor events just because they’re being held on some public property, what about Mayfest and all festivals, including children’s festivals?
What about the Botanic Garden? What about concerts at Panther Island?
For that matter, what about your niece’s wedding in the Texas & Pacific rail station ballroom?
The tomfoolery by some lawmakers — just to make political hay at election time — is blatant.
In an official request for a legal opinion from the attorney general, state Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Pearland, and state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, asked “whether a local government can create gun bans ... specifically, whether the State Fair of Texas can.”
The State Fair of Texas is not a government.
Although we’d be much better off under Big Tex.
This story was originally published August 16, 2024 at 9:28 AM.
