Texas Attorney General Says No To Texas State Fair Gun Ban

Texas State Fair organizers recently declared the fair a gun free zone but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says, bring 'em.

The Texas State Fair is implementing a policy change this year regarding handguns that has a lot of people up in, (no pun intended), "arms".

The Texas State Fair will not allow licensed ... or unlicensed ... peeps to enter the park if they're packing. That caused some backlash and now the Texas AG is weighing in.

“Texas law clearly states that license to carry holders may not be prevented from carrying a firearm on property owned or leased by the government unless otherwise prevented by state statute,” Paxton said in a Wednesday statement. “The State Fair of Texas’s recent policy that infringes on LTC holders’ Second Amendment rights is unlawful. Dallas has fifteen days to fix the issue, otherwise I will see them in court.” - startelegram

Texas State Fair peeps say they're just leasing public property and, since they aren't being paid or supported by the state, they can ban guns like any other private business can.

An opinion from AG Paxton in 2016 seems to give certain entities that "rent" public property via "arms length" agreements the ability to set their own gun policies. However, going strictly by the law as written, (see above), it looks like the fair may lose this one.

If Paxton does take this to court though, the judge/jury may see Paxton's 2016 opinion as reason to rule in favor of the fair. The law is the law. A court case is a coin toss.

Since the law doesn't seem to be in the fairs' favor, my bet is, they'll let him sue them and count on that prior opinion swaying the verdict.

50/50 odds beat 0/0 odds so, why wouldn't they?