{"id":399495,"date":"2026-08-06T18:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/399495\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T18:42:14","slug":"state-fair-of-texas-gun-ban-upheld-by-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/399495\/","title":{"rendered":"State Fair of Texas&#8217; gun ban upheld by appeals court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 15th Court of Appeals affirmed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/dallas-county\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas County <\/a>judge\u2019s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton and three gun owners. The ruling leaves the ban in place unless the Texas Supreme Court intervenes.<\/p>\n<p>The court ruled the state law applies only to government entities, not private organizations like the State Fair. Judges found Dallas didn&#8217;t take any action prohibited by law and didn&#8217;t create, direct or enforce the fair\u2019s firearm policy.<\/p>\n<p>Paxton argued the city\u2019s ownership of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/fair-park\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fair Park<\/a> made it responsible for the State Fair\u2019s gun policy. The appeals court disagreed, saying the statute governs government conduct and doesn&#8217;t apply to the State Fair and other private organizations. It also rejected the state\u2019s argument that the restriction automatically extends to private tenants operating on public property.<\/p>\n<p>Dallas owns Fair Park, but leases it to the nonprofit State Fair of Texas each fall. The group adopted the ban in 2024 after a man shot three people during the 2023 fair. The State Fair at the time said the change would strengthen security. Only current law enforcement officers and qualified retired law enforcement officers are allowed to carry firearms during the event.<\/p>\n<p>Chris McNutt, president of Texas Gun Rights and the Texas Gun Rights Foundation, criticized Thursday\u2019s ruling, saying the policy \u201cdoes nothing to stop criminals\u201d and instead \u201cturns peaceable Texans into sitting ducks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McNutt argued the 2023 shooter was not a licensed handgun holder and illegally brought a firearm into the fairgrounds. Rather than fixing security failures, he said, the State Fair chose to disarm lawful gun owners. He also vowed to push lawmakers in 2027 to revive legislation that would hold private operators legally liable if gun-free zones fail to protect the people they disarm.<\/p>\n<p>A representative from the State Fair of Texas didn&#8217;t immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Staff writer Sally\u00a0Avila Edwards contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 15th Court of Appeals affirmed a Dallas County judge\u2019s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Attorney General&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,88032,89512,87998,89138,95188,92279],"class_list":["post-399495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-fortworth","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-dallas","tag-tp-dallas-county","tag-tp-fair-park","tag-tp-parks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}