A bill advancing in the Texas legislature would prevent the State Fair of Texas from prohibiting firearms.

SB 1065 would allow licensed carry holders to bring firearms into the fair and other places because it prohibits lessees of publicly owned property from restricting Second Amendment rights.

The fair hosts nearly 2.4 million visitors a year on land owned by the city of Dallas. It banned guns after a shooting at the event in 2023 left three people injured.

State Senator Bob Hall sponsored the bill after the Texas Supreme Court denied the state’s attorney general Ken Paxton‘s emergency filing that sought to overturn the gun ban.

“Just because I go to the fair does not mean I give up my right to defend myself,” Mr. Hall said.

The Texas State Rifle Association supports the legislation. It says gun-free zones actually make the public less safe, claiming 82 percent of mass public shootings since 1998 have occurred in places where guns are banned.

“The knee jerk reaction by the State Fair was a policy change that not only banned all weapons but it banned the very people that you want to carry a handgun, ” the group’s executive director, John Poole, testified at a committee hearing last week.

Gun instructor Gary Zimmerman says the policy actually provides a path for criminals to obtain more weapons. “Where are you going to put your gun?” Mr. Zimmerman testified. “In your car? Where’s the number one place that criminals obtain guns? It’s from stealing them from cars. It’s not from buying them.” 

The anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action is fighting a number of bills that would expand gun rights in Texas. “Instead of taking action against gun violence by strengthening our weak laws, our lawmakers are convinced that more guns in our communities is the answer. We know it’s not,” volunteer Molly Bursey said.

The fair told local press outlets the gun ban was not meant to be a political statement but an attempt to make the fair safer for visitors. “It has been suggested that our new policy makes the State Fair a ‘gun free’ zone and therefore less safe than before. We disagree with this suggestion. The State Fair has adopted a similar policy to that of most all similar events in Texas, such as athletic competitions, concerts, and other fairs and festivals throughout the state,” the fair says in a statement.

The full Senate will vote on the measure after it advanced out of the Committee on State Affairs on Tuesday.