At last year’s Texas State Fair, a guy named Cameron Turner said “a group of big men” came toward him and his family in a crowded food court. So, as one does, Turner allegedly whipped out his trusty shootin’ ’arn. He’s accused of wounding three people before the police ran him down and arrested him. (Investigators found that he was alone at the time of the encounter.) Turner somehow managed to get his gun past the sensors at the gates of the fairgrounds. He was indicted on three charges of aggravated assault. In January, his bail was reduced from $1.6 million to $350,000 by a Dallas county judge.
Anyway, two weeks ago, acting out of an abundance of caution, and with impeccable logic, Texas State Fair officials and local law enforcement simply banned firearms from the fairgrounds this year. That, of course, set off skyrockets in the brains of the Republicans in the Texas legislature, and in the largely unused spaces in the attic of state attorney general Ken Paxton. From The Texas Tribune:
“Dallas has fifteen days to fix the issue. Otherwise, I will see them in court,” Paxton said in a statement. In his letter to the city, Paxton said he could seek civil penalties of between $1,000 and $1,500 per day. A state fair official told The Texas Tribune they were waiting for guidance from the city….The Attorney General’s letter comes after several state lawmakers signed a petition to pressure State Fair officials to rescind the new policy—saying the new policy makes the fair “less safe” because “Gun free zones are magnets for crime because they present less of a threat to those who seek to do evil.” Also, the NRA and other gun rights advocacy groups released statements encouraging the state fair to change its decision.
Three people got shot last year because the sensors didn’t catch a firearm coming through the gates. It seems to the casual observer that Cameron Turner’s being strapped didn’t make the event any safer. So the officials running the fair decide to try it without the guns this year, and the Texas political establishment lands on them like a ton of fried dough. I never will understand the logic of the gun crowd.
