In the first 150 odd years of the Minnesota State Fair, law abiding citizens were discouraged, and perhaps even told in as many words not to bring guns to the Minnesota state fair.
And yet they did. From statehood until 1974, law-abiding Minnesotans didn’t need a permit to carry a firearm, so it’s completely preposterous just say not a single law abiding citizen brought their firearm to the fair.
And we know that in the “shall issue” era, people might have brought a gun or two. In fact, I know of at least one radio station where every single staffer at the fairgrounds may have had a legal firearm, and a clean criminal record to go with it.
 And in that 150-odd years, there were countless fights…
… and exactly one incident with a gun, an armed robbery probably five or six years ago – an incident that happened about the time the fair stepped up the “gun free zone“ signs and rhetoric. If you guessed that the perpetrators were legal gun owners, actually entitled to hold, much less own, a firearm or carrier in public legally, you would have guessed wrong.
So that’s the first 160 years of Fair history..
Then, last year (before the Covid-addled 2021 Fair), the Minnesota State Fair announced that they were going to put some teeth behind the “gun free zone“ designation, putting up metal detectors and searching fairgoers. They took that policy to court, and prevailed (so far).
The official policy of the Minnesota State Fair is that law abiding citizens should be defenseless against whatever miscreancy any ne’er-do-well wants to carry out.
After about 160 relatively tranquil years, it took exactly 10 days for some party pooper to settle his argument – probably over a fish story or a bet on a Gophers game, I bet – with a gun that just couldn’t possibly have been there, because it’s a gun free zone.
There is a lesson here that we can, and should, apply to the sort of spectacular violence that has the white middle-class part of our society so exercised, the mass shootings in places like schools and government offices and schools and grocery stores and schools.
If you want to deter violence, nobody actually needs to carry a gun. All that’s needed is the knowledge that nothing prevents good people from protecting themselves.
Criminals aren’t as a rule the brightest people – but they have a sense of self preservation.  in the months after Minnesota past its “shall issue“ carry permit statute in 2003/2005, something weird happened: an alarming number of bars that posted themselves as “gun free“ wound up getting robbed. Most of those signs – especially in the less than posh neighborhoods – disappeared from bars by about 2006.
There are two lessons in last nights story:
1) The Minnesota State Fair board values the anxieties and aesthetics of its white, upper middle class governing board and political circle more than your safety.
2) an ounce of prevention is worth all the self righteous politically correct hubris in the world.
160+ years of law abiding citizens carrying firearms on the fairgrounds: zero shootings.
Two years (one of them after Covid) of security Cedar and at law abiding citizens: the first ever shooting on the fairgrounds (an increase in violence around the fairgrounds).
Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation. But in this case, I’m pretty sure it does.
According to CrimeWatchMPLS :
“State Fair – About 8:20 p.m., Monday, a fence jumper reportedly broke their leg after jumping over.”
Shouldn’t we focus on the more important issue? When will this capitalist, patriarchal, racist, wall be removed? People, especially BIPOC, should not be subjected to the dangerous exclusionary whims of the White Supremacist dominated Minnesota State Fair Board.
i suspect it was those damn lutherans again the swedish american lutherans are high church they hate the low church german american lutherans you know its as bad as sunni versus shia muslims or hutu versus tutsi in rwanda endless violence shootings at light rail stations bars nightclubs and now the fair jerks
how can there be 250000 people at the fair and no description of the shooter its always nobody saw nuffin with that bunch worse than mafia
Interesting article in the Strib today about all the speeding Minnesotans are doing on our roads and highways. The conclusion was that this is due to less traffic enforcement as police departments have moved resources to violent crimes, which are also, er, shooting up.
So, crime goes up because criminals know the know laws aren’t being enforced, and police try to deal with criminals and drivers start speeding more … because they know the laws aren’t being enforced.
Something noticed going into the Fair this year was the sandwich board sign out front.
“This Event’s Organizer has banned guns on the premises.”
Nice piece of legal distraction.
Landlords cannot ban guns.
Government Agencies cannot ban guns.
Both are preempted by the State’s Carry Law.
The Board that oversees the MN State Fair may in fact be the organizer, but it is also both the landlord AND a government agency.
I’ve also noticed that both times a judge has ruled in favor of the MN State Fair on that gun ban lawsuit, the judges have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at the lawsuit. They’ve offered a myriad of reasons to support the Fair and ended with “and by the way, the plaintiffs don’t have standing.” In my non-professional experience judges tend to lead with the standing issue and then stop there if there isn’t standing. If there’s no standing then everything else is moot. I find it curious that two different judges have both acted so atypically.
SmithStCrx
the judges are trying in their prolix way to inoculate against appeal.
NW, don’t worry, those piggies will be focusing on speeders soon to drum up the revenue because you cannot tax a murder.
^ jpa, you can’t tax dindus in general and especially those that are driving stolen vehicles. The focus will be only on whyte speeders who look like they can pay.
The MN State Fair Grounds is in Falcon Heights, which is a suburb of Ramsey County. The Ramsey county Attorney is John Choi. Choi was last elected with 78%+ of the votes in 2018.
People get the government they vote for.
I have to wonder what the relative policing is for the State Fair these days vs. previously, and whether that tracks with the increasing number of criminals that the police have had to leave on the streets, and with the likelihood that the police are still recognizing the warning signs that somebody is not on the up & up. I’m guessing that last bit has gone down precipitously lately.
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John;
To your last point and I’ve mentioned this before, whenever there is a white cop arresting a black person, there are 50 blacks filming it with their cell phones, but let a couple of hood rats blast away at each other, among those same 50 blacks, no one saw nuffin.
Regarding speeding, I’m on the highways every day of the week, as far west as Plato, east to Menominee, south to Red Wing and north to Excelsior, Wayzara. Those freeways, even Highway 52 which used to be the longest speed trap in the state, have literally turned into the Autobahn. Because I drive a company car that’s monitored, I can’t exceed posted speed limits by more than 10 mph more than three times per month, or I get a nasty gram from our Fleet Manager, so it’s easy to see who is flying low. It’s been said that Subarus and Hondas are “liberal staff cars”. Well, if that’s true, a lot of people driving those models, don’t believe Pedo Pete’s gloBULL warming bullshit, either. The only place that I see consistent enforcement by the H P, is 494 between 35E and Concord. At least three times per week, six squad cars work both sides. They park on the medians in front of the Vikings facility and under bridges at the curves.
One last observation. If black people don’t want to be “profiled”, they shouldn’t be driving like they are at Daytona.