Even as he appeals his own securities fraud charges in state court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is doing his best to make sure there is almost nowhere in the state that you can’t carry a gun openly.
Paxton’s efforts seem focuses on Austin at the moment. The Austin Monitor reported Friday that Paxton had on filed a lawsuit alleging the ban on handguns at City Hall violates state law
The city claims that City Hall meetings of the Downtown Austin Community Court, though infrequent, exempt it from the state’s mandate to allow guns because state law forbids guns in courtrooms. A city spokesman, meanwhile, told the Austin American-Statesman that it was prepared and willing to fight the battle in court. (The Statesman also reported that the suit followed from two complaints by local gun rights activist Michael Cargill, who told the paper that the City Council is “totally out of control” in trying to ban guns from the building.)
On the other side of the issue, the Texas Tribune reports that Paxton has termed a lawsuit against the state’s campus carry law “frivolous,” adding that the three University of Texas at Austin professors who filed the suit have no valid reasons for opposing guns on campus.
Professors Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore, and Mia Carter filed the lawsuit opposing the state’s campus carry law last month, the Tribune story added, asking a federal judge to grant an injunction that would block students from carrying guns into university buildings before the August 24, the first day of class.