After losing arguments in a Dallas district court and a state appeals court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took his challenge of the State Fair of Texas's gun policy to the state supreme court on Wednesday. Late Thursday night, the Supreme Court of Texas declined Paxton's petition, allowing the State Fair to move forward with enforcing its ban on firearms.
Judge James Blacklock responded to the petition by saying, "The State’s presentation to this Court takes no position on whether the State Fair of Texas, a private entity, has the legal authority to exclude patrons carrying handguns from the Fair." Justice Blacklock went on to say, "This Court cannot possibly order the State Fair to allow handguns to be carried at this year’s Fair when the party seeking that relief does not even argue that Texas law obligates the Fair to do so."
Paxton filed a petition with the Texas Supreme Court to prevent the city of Dallas from assisting the State Fair of Texas in enforcing its firearm ban at Fair Park. To the state supreme court's dismay, the state's attorney general didn't challenge the legality of the gun policy but rather the city's ability to help enforce it.
"Remarkably, the State's presentation to this Court takes no position on whether the State Fair of Texas, a private entity, has the legal authority to exclude patrons carrying handguns from the Fair," the state supreme court wrote. "This may surprise many observers, given that the ostensible purpose of this litigation is to determine whether Texas law entitles law-abiding Texans to carry handguns at the State Fair despite the Fair's recently enacted policy to the contrary."
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The state supreme court said the state's filing didn't attempt to answer the question of whether the State Fair had the legal authority to enforce a prohibition on guns and was "conspicuously silent" on the issue.
"Whether Texans have a legal right to carry handguns at a mass public event of this nature is not a question that should ever be in doubt. Law-abiding handgun owners in Texas know that there are certain places where they may not carry their weapon. They need to know -- with maximum clarity -- whether the State Fair is one of those places," the court said.
Paxton said on Friday morning that he intends to keep fighting the ban. He said he'll work with the state legislature, which convenes next January.
“Texans have a right to lawfully carry and the City of Dallas has no authority to contract their rights away to a private entity,” said Paxton in a statement Friday morning. “This case is not over. I will continue to fight this on the merits to uphold Texans’ ability to defend themselves, which is protected by State law. While Texas clearly prohibits this type of gun ban, I will be working with the Legislature this session to protect law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights on public property.”
STATE FAIR ANNOUNCES NEW GUN POLICY
In early August, the State Fair of Texas announced that it would screen for weapons at the gate and that only active or retired law enforcement officers would be allowed to carry weapons into the fairgrounds.
The attorney general argued the fair's policy unlawfully prohibits licensed gun owners from carrying their weapons in places owned or leased by governmental entities unless otherwise prohibited by law.
The city of Dallas owns Fair Park and leases much of the fairgrounds to the State Fair of Texas each year.
In the city's response to the appeals court earlier this week, interim Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said the State Fair was a ticketed, private event and that the fair had exclusive control over some of Fair Park during its 24-day run. A board of directors runs the State Fair with no city oversight or approval, and the State Fair, as a private event, has exclusive authority to decide who it will admit. Tolbert said the city did not take a position on the correctness of the fair's gun policy and said they had received no complaints from citizens about the fair's policy.
The appeals court ruled Tuesday that there was not enough evidence showing that the State Fair or the city of Dallas would break any laws with the policy on firearms, and Paxton's motion for a temporary injunction pending the appeal was denied.
Amid the legal battle to get the fair to rescind their policy, Paxton pulled a 2016 opinion in which he supported a nonprofit's right to ban firearms on government-owned land. During the appeal, Paxton said the opinion was pulled because handgun laws had changed and that the opinion was now outdated and inapplicable.
On Thursday, the Texas Supreme Court addressed the 2016 opinion Paxton pulled, saying that a withdrawn opinion is not the same as a repudiated one and that the attorney general’s office should explain why the general's previous opinion is now wrong.
The State Fair of Texas runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 20.
