Judge blocks guns at Minnesota fair

MINNEAPOLIS — A judge has rejected a request by a gun owners group for a temporary injunction to require the Minnesota State Fair to allow permit holders to carry their pistols on the fairgrounds, ruling that they’re unlikely to prevail as the broader case goes forward.

Ramsey County District Judge Laura Nelson ruled less than 24 hours before the State Fair opened Thursday that the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus failed to meet its burden of proof that the fair’s longstanding ban on guns violates state law or that they have sufficient legal grounds to seek relief.

The group contends the ban violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and state laws governing the rights of permit holders to carry their guns in public.

Nelson pointed out in her ruling that the State Fair has banned guns since 2003, when it began posting prominent signs at the gates, and that the prohibition has been posted on the fair’s website since at least 2016, when fair officials began doing bag checks.

She also noted that the fair announced plans in 2020 to start using metal detectors to enforce the ban. But the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus didn’t sue the fair’s governing body, the Minnesota State Agricultural Society, to overturn the ban until earlier this month.

The purpose of a temporary injunction is normally to preserve the status quo, and that the status quo in this case favors letting the ban stand, Nelson said.

Attorney Scott Flaherty argued for the gun owners at a hearing last week that the question isn’t whether allowing guns onto the fairgrounds is good public policy but whether the ban is legal.

The judge’s ruling does not end the case, and the arguments will continue.