Packing Heat at the Fair

Big doings around here.

The city of Dallas, or rather the people running the Texas State Fair have decreed that no one shall pack heat whilst they eat funnel cakes at the fair.

By the way, I tried to find a piece at Dallas Morning News, but it was behind a paywall, of course. The gist of it was Paxton (the AG) was threatening to sue Dallas over common sense gun regulation. Hahha…sure. Common sense.

This is all because a goblin busted some caps at the fair last year. I’m thinking for the first time in it’s history. Certainly in decades, if memory serves.

Ok. There are two things that get confused here, Right to Carry (RTC) and License to Carry (LTC). There’s a difference. But where it makes the most is by statute. The Fair, from what I understand, has always been LTC. This means, the only ones that can pack heat are licensed. This is common sense regulation. LTC holders (such as myself) know when it’s appropriate to use a gun and when it’s not. We also have shown some level of proficiency, and awareness that when we shoot, we look at what’s behind. There’s a lot of law behind LTC that basically says if you screw up, you get punished harder because you should’ve known better.

That said, I’m pretty sure the goblin in question wasn’t packing a LTC. I’m also pretty sure that goblins aren’t going to pay attention to that rule anyhow. Do they ever?

Some background; the Fair is held at Fair Park. Fair Park is both a park and an area. The Area known as Fair Park is most of South Dallas. South Dallas has more Goblins than the Mines of Moria. One might say they are indigenous population (IPs) there. But stick with me.

Fair Park proper is that green area at the top of the highlighted area.

Interesting that Google Maps doesn’t label the street to the south. That would be MLK avenue.

See where I’m going here?

When we first moved down here, I went with the boy scouts on a rail trip to Fair Park to look at the railroad museum, which was underwhelming. We rode to Pearl St, then took a bus to the park, or as close as we could get to it. My first experience in a DFW hood. Not good. Not fun shepherding boys past the liquor stores and layabouts.

Needless to say, I’ve been quite a bit. It’s where the Irish Festival is held. Been every year there for awhile. When the DART green line opened, you could ride right to the gate. Before that, the best way (and still is) was to drive, enter the park in the main entrance, and park inside the compound. The Green line isn’t all that great shakes. There and back, you have to transfer at Pearl St. to get on the Red line north to Plano. You have a few stops, and a bit of a wait, in goblin territory before you can relax in any way.

Back in the day, one could get off a few stops west of Pearl at the West End, which was Dallas’ premier restaurant/bar scene. No mas it isn’t. Because Goblins. I used to work on Elm street at the Bank of America campus, riding DART every day. It wasn’t great back then, twenty years ago. Last time I went on rail down there it was my last.

It’s the sort of area that if you find yourself walking, you mutter like Gandalf: “Perhaps our presence will go unnoticed”.

Not that any of this matters to me one bit, BTW. I’ve been to the fair exactly once in over 20 years and for sure wouldn’t go unarmed these days. It’s rare I’m on that side of town and can’t imagine why I’d go there.

Certainly not for the Fair, anyhow.