Dallas judge affirms Texas State Fair's no-gun policy, denies Paxton's request for block

This story was updated to add additional information.

Less than a week before festivities at the State Fair of Texas are set to begin, a state judge in Dallas on Thursday shot down Attorney General Ken Paxton's request to temporarily block the fair's newly implemented gun ban.

The Republican attorney general accused the city of Dallas of exceeding its legal authority in allowing the fair to prohibit guns from government-owned public property, according to a lawsuit filed Aug. 29.

State District Judge Emily Tobolowsky, a Democrat, denied Paxton's motion for a temporary injunction against the no-firearms policy after a hearing Thursday morning.

Paxton's office will fight to overturn Tobolowsky's order in the new 15th Court of Appeals, per a notice of accelerated appeal obtained by the American-Statesman Thursday afternoon. The court, which opened Sept. 1, hears all intermediate appellate disputes over state actions and legislative constitutionality per a law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2023.

Nine days before Thursday's hearing, Paxton withdrew a legal opinion from 2016 in which he stated that nonprofit entities have the right to ban firearms on public land that they are leasing from a city. Two Republican lawmakers had requested a new analysis on a similar subject to the opinion, KP-0108, after the lawsuit was filed.

Attorneys for the city of Dallas criticized the move as "revealing" in court filings, adding that it did not change the underlying legal issues.

"Recognizing that the Attorney General’s position since 2016 has firmly landed in support of the City’s posture here, the Attorney General withdrew KP-0108—on which municipalities and nonprofits have relied on for years—with the blatant intent of changing course to obtain a different outcome here," attorneys for Dallas-based firm Tillotson, Johnson and Patton wrote in a response brief on the city's behalf. "Doing so only confirms that the opinion expressed therein was correct and Plaintiffs’ claims in this case are necessarily inapposite to and unsupportable by that opinion."

The attorney general's office argued in the lawsuit that the city cannot ban guns on the 277-acre Fair Park in Dallas because it is public property.

The fair's governing board tightened its gun policy in early August after previously allowing Texans with permits to carry concealed firearms, sparking significant controversy. On Aug. 12, 61 Republican state lawmakers and 10 GOP legislative candidates signed a letter demanding the fair's board of directors reverse the gun prohibition.

"Gun free zones are magnets for crime because they present less of a threat to those who seek to do evil," the letter said.

Last year, three fairgoers were injured in a shooting that stemmed from a private dispute.

Paxton’s office and the State Fair of Texas did not immediately respond to the American-Statesman’s requests for comment. Karissa Condoianis, the State Fair of Texas' senior vice president for public relations, previously told the Statesman that the fair was standing by its gun ban.

"We believe we have the right to make this decision and maintain that it is the correct decision to protect the safety of our patrons," Condoianis wrote in an email statement Aug. 30.

The Statesman also reached out to the city of Dallas, which declined to comment on pending litigation.

However, Jeff Tillotson, counsel for Dallas, said, "We thank the Court for its careful consideration of this matter."

The fair will take place between Sept. 27 and Oct. 20.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Dallas judge denies Ken Paxton's request to block state fair's gun ban