This was the first year since the passage of shall issue firearm carry that the Minnesota State Fairgrounds loudly, visibly posted itself as a “gun free zone”.
The Fair’s spokesperson Brooke Blakey was even just a little bit obnoxious about it before the fair started. Near as I could tell, it was the first time anyone associated with the state fair has ever gotten really aggressive about alienating fairgoers with legal carry permits.
You hardly need me to tell you what happened next, do you?
According to State Fair Police Public Information Officer Brooke Blakey, at least two suspects took more than $10,000…The suspects struck when the building was closed to the public, restraining at least one person who had been working in the booth, and a beer supplier.
Police say this is the first robbery of its kind at the Minnesota State Fair.
The fair has it’s first armed robbery in 150-odd use the the month that a fair officer gets snotty about law-abiding gun owners?
Pure coincidence, I’m sure.
CORRECTION: Flawed as her (and, mostly, the Fair Board’s) reasoning may be, I misread the piece in which Ms. Blakey was quoted. The obnoxious bit (“She also had talks with gun-rights supporters who – contrary to fair policy – wanted to strap on their sidearms and walk down the middle of Dan Patch Avenue“) was written by Delma Francis, in the Minnesota Womens Press, reprinted in the Twin Cities Daily Planet – both of them shrill leftist outlets supported by liberals with deep pockets.
I apologize for the error.
“…strap on a sidearm”
Nah, not loaded language at all.
PS:
The fair servers it’s first armed robbery in 150-odd use the Jerry month that a fair officer gets snotty about law-abiding gun owners?
Good old spell check, auto correct, and auto finish.
Yeah, that’s what I get for trying to finish a post using “voice to text” in a big hurry without checking it again…
For all the obnoxious ads the State Fair runs prior and during the Fair, I missed the one where they talked about “unarmed vendors with lots of cash money”. When you are adamant that good people with guns be disarmed, bad people with guns will show up and take their money.
Since the Fair loves nostalgia, (free milk? all day long? how quaint!) it’s good to see them bringing back another historic part of Minnesota – the armed robbery. PS: The armed robbers were probably Walker oppressed Wisconsinites suffering due to their state producing many more jobs than here in Minnesota.
“The armed robbers were probably Walker oppressed Wisconsinites suffering due to their state producing many more jobs than here in Minnesota.”
I think that they were Methodists.
I don’t know what happened in the intervening years, but I do remember seeing posting signs a few years back (2008?) when I went to the Fairgrounds. So I’m not quite sure you’re correct that this was the first year it was posted.
I hate these politically motivated signs that effectively make a political statement, but don’t do any action. The linked story about the robbery indicates the suspects were armed, thus no real action on the part of the fair to ban guns. I would love to see the fair held liable to the MN Craft Brewers since the fair allowed the armed robbery (failing to actually ban guns) while preventing the rights of those working the booth to protect themselves. However, I fear that would, in reality, backfire and then my future fair attendance would be spoiled by metal detectors.
MJB,
I had it explained to me once upon a time by a couple of lawyers in this comment thread seven years ago why the suit wouldn’t work.
More’s the pity.
I’m trying to decide if I think she got her job as Public Information Officer due to Nepotism (her father’s the Chief) or her Diversity Score (DS). I’ll give her credit on starting at the bottom, learning job skills and moving up. More people need to do that.
It’s her quote about being a social worker where I start to lose respect,
“I thought I was going to save the world.”
Oh, she’s also an officer with Metro Transit. That means she won’t even need to take vacation from her primary job to work at the Fairgrounds when they put LRT down Dan Patch Ave (or is it a streetcar).
I’m really trying not to make judgements about her status as a single mother, other than how it increases her DS.
As to her job as the Fair PD’s PI, if last year’s most important message was about the heat, then why do we even pay for a PI? We call it the Great Minnesota Sweat Together. We already know it get’s hot during the Fair. It’s the end of August in Minnesota!!
And now this year, she took it a step further. She proved she’s not competent to hold a position that shouldn’t even exist.
” “I just explain that these are the rules that are in place, that we’re not trying to keep you from your constitutional rights, but it’s alarming to the public” to see an armed fairgoer, she says.”
The truth is Brooke, that you are trying to keep us from our Constitutional Rights (and I’d argue Natural Rights) and making us less safe in the process. Hopefully we can correct that issue sooner rather than later.
When the law first passed, the Fair posted, despite the statute being clear that the Fair had no legal authority to post. (The Agricultural Association is a government entity, to which the state preemption law applies).
The signs stayed up, but the police officers patrolling the Fair received instructions to avoid making an issue about it.
Tangent: I expect organizations like these:
http://www.phaboard.org/
to pick up the torch of the CDC in the political “health vs guns” debate. And guess what Minnesota state agency just got “accredited” (pronounced “conned”) by PHAB and celebrated it today …
I wonder, is it illegal for the State Fair to ban guns? Minn. Stat. 624.714, Subd. 17 allows gun bans in “private establishments” defined as owned by a non-government entity for non-government purposes. The State Fair is run by the State Agricultural Society, which Minn. Stat. 37.01 says is a “public corporation,” a term not defined in statute. Minn. Stat. 37.14 says management of the State Fairgrounds is vested in the Society as “a department of the state” although holding an annual Get-Together doesn’t seem much like a governmental purpose. A court might go either way. Should Chapter 624 be amended to clarify that “private enterprise” does not include lands owned or maintained by a “public corporation” or does that risk a hornet’s nest of insanely bad publicity for very small gain?
On the other hand, Minnesota State Fair v. James D. Anderson (unpublished Court of Appeals 1997) involved a State Fair police officer who sued because the State Fair didn’t follow the Public Employees Labor Relations Act. The State Fair didn’t assert they were not a public employer, implying the State Fair concedes it is a public employer which, under Minn. Stat. 179A.03, Subd. 15, means a governmental unit. A government unit is not a private enterprise so it can’t ban guns.
What we need is a Joel Rosenberg-type martyr to get himself ticketed at the Fair so he can go to court to challenge the gun ban. Any volunteers?
Sef: your PS was utter brilliance.
PM: Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read your comment. I would have made a mess from spitting it out of my mouth.
Joe Doakes: I just got my permit a month ago. I’m too green to pull a stunt like that.
My take on whether it’s legal for the State Fair to prohibit lawful carry; no, but count on a St. Paul court to uphold their right, reversed upon appeal. Law abiding gun owner out many thousands in the process, count on State Fair to repeat.
Note to self; when you go to the state fair, remember that a crook blinded by capsicum is at least less hazardous than one not so blinded.
What we need is a Joel Rosenberg-type martyr to get himself ticketed…
I don’t earn nearly enough to be a test case.
On the other hands, I…have a good friend who didn’t notice the brand-new signs until like the third time he went to the fair this year. So you never know.
Isn’t this a bit of a public relations issue? Why would a lawful permit holder feel it necessary to carry at the MN State Fair? The general public (many of which are gun owners) may not be particularily sympathetic to the idea of carrying at the Fair.
It would be interesting to poll the175k permit holders in MN how they feel about carrying at the Fair and whether it’s a good idea.
Beyond the issue of good people “being strapped” I’m surprised that this is the first time an armed robbery has occurred in the 150-odd years (including when the ’20’s era St Paul police chief used to give vacationing gangsters a wink and a nod) of the fair. Granted lots of people use their debit/credit cards (are you paying attention, hackers?) to pay for things now, but mostly in the every other year I have been to the fair, I see a lot of cash being exchanged.
A TV news report I saw noted that most vendors have no secure storage beyond maybe a safe “a few” keep in their booth or trailer. It would seem to me that hearing ‘record attendance’ and thinking of all the cash being exchanged would be the equivalent to the ‘Bat Signal’ to area miscreants.
Given all the “Citizen of the Day” types that populate the St Paul state fair board / banking culture, I’m surprised no banker has stepped forward to offer their services in securing the cash. Of course given that Martha of “Sweet Martha’s Cookies” is a multi-millionaire who works just a few weeks a year, you have to wonder if the booth operators really want many people (especially the DFL Tax Thugs) knowing how much cash they are really taking in.
Emery; a lawful permit holder might have any number of reasons to carry at the Fair. They might have a jealous ex-spouse or ex-boyfriend. They might have noticed that some of the street gangs were getting in to wreak havoc. Same reasons, really, that someone might like to be armed on the drive to work, or while shopping elsewhere.
Now given the usual heat at the fair, it’s harder to carry concealed, but as Mitch notes, it’s doable for those with the moxie to try.
“Now given the usual heat at the fair, it’s harder to carry concealed, but as Mitch notes, it’s doable for those with the moxie to try.”
Bike, I’d say with something in line with a Ruger LCP or LCR, a good pocket holster, and cargo type roomy pocket pants it would be pretty easy.
Why would a permit holder feel it necessary to carry at the State Fair? Why would a cop? Why would anybody? Because someone else might cause trouble at the State Fair, just as they might at Valley Fair. http://www.startribune.com/local/south/52480822.html
Emery, if I KNEW that going someplace was dangerous, I wouldn’t go armed, I wouldn’t go AT ALL. It’s where I Don’t expect to be attacked – in a school, a movie theatre, Valley Fair, the shopping mall – those are the places I’m worried about my family being defenseless victims of thuggery.
.
Why would a lawful permit holder feel it necessary to carry at the MN State Fair?
To deter armed robberies, for one
hypotheticalexample.The general public (many of which are gun owners) may not be particularily sympathetic to the idea of carrying at the Fair.
The misinformed ones? That’s a burden we always face, on or off the Fairgrounds.
It would be interesting to poll the175k permit holders in MN how they feel about carrying at the Fair and whether it’s a good idea.
There is a legitimate point buried in there somewhere; carrying in a place that’s as crowded as Mumbai on a hot day is a daunting responsibility, not to mention a logistical challenge (shorts and t-shirts aren’t great for carry). At the very least, you’d want to avoid hardball loads; at most, one might decide for oneself that carrying is a bad idea.
But I’d just as soon do that myself, as opposed to having the state put up a sign saying “everyone past this gate is disarmed!”.
Mitch, I wouldn’t mind that sign so much if it were enforced – every single exhibitor, vendor, politician and ordinary person who enters the Fair passes through the metal detector so I know we’re all equally disarmed. Now all I have to look out for is gangs or people tougher than me.
What I object to is a sign that effectively says “Lawabiding citizens must enter defenseless, criminals step right this way.”
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Joe, even if it were enforced, what do you do when a 292 lb 18 year old with “no serious felonies on his adult record” decides to demonstrate how my 200 lbs is no match for his 292?
As the old adage notes, “God made man and woman. Colonel Colt made them equal.”
I’m guessing the harpies at the Minnesota Womens Press know a thing or two about strap-ons.
Emery why bother wondering? Just dig up some poll results that suit your needs and falsely attribute them. C’mon sport, you know you want to.
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