Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus Filed Lawsuit Against State Fair for Gun Restrictions

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and others filed a lawsuit against the state fair because of their gun restrictions. They argue that the Minnesota State Agricultural Society does not have the authority to bar people from carrying guns at the state fair. According to Minnesota Public Radio, “Ramsey County, whose sheriff is directing fair security this year, is also named as a defendant.”

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Minnesota State Fair Eliminates Their Police Force

After the former State Fair Police Chief retired, the Minnesota State Fair has gone back to the drawing board for assembling a police presence for the upcoming fair. Rather than have their own force, as they have had for over 40 years, they will be working with a local department to provide security for the 2021 fair. 

The former state fair police officers were much like other police officers. Former State Fair Police Chief Paul Paulos said “State Fair police officers are armed. And they’re licensed and trained like any other officer.” In prior years, the State Fair Police Department would be made up of retired police officers, other trained officers, and police officers working in their spare time.

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Minnesota State Fair Canceled for First Time in More Than 70 Years

The general manager of the Minnesota State Fair announced Friday morning that the annual gathering will be canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve been working hard and doing our very best with preparations for the 2020 State Fair. The picture was cloudy in March, but things have cleared up considerably since then. Right now is the time of year when things need to really take off if we’re going to have a fair, but we can see that we’re out of runway and can’t get off the ground. There will be no State Fair this year,” General Manager Jerry Hammer said in a statement.

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Minnesota Politicians Invade State Fair, But Voters Want to Leave Politics At Home

Tom Walz, Jeff Johnson

Each year, the Minnesota State Fair looks more and more like a political convention, but this year fair-goers seem to have had enough of the politicization of the Great Minnesota Get-Together. Both major parties, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party and the state GOP, have booths at the fair with their respective candidates for elected office campaigning all day long throughout the fairgrounds. DFL candidate for governor Rep. Tim Walz and his running mate Peggy Flanagan chronicled their adventures at the fair on Twitter, posting of video of Walz delivering “Sweet Martha’s Cookies” to the GOP booth. “Minnesotans can show this nation that our politics doesn’t need to be narrow and divisive. It can be inclusive, it can be hopeful, it can be visionary, and it can be about one Minnesota gathering together,” Walz said to a crowd of fair-goers. Kicking off the Minnesota State Fair with a visit to the @MinnesotaDFL booth! Together, we can make our vision for #OneMinnesota a reality. pic.twitter.com/Tg52inyLEG — Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) August 23, 2018 Walz’s opponent, Republican Jeff Johnson, is also making his presence known at the annual gathering, which broke its opening day attendance record Thursday with 122,695 Minnesotans in attendance. “Excited to be…

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