Ohio County Fair ‘No Guns' Signs Are Unacceptable Insults to Armed Patrons

“As shootings erupt at Ohio county fairs, locals are powerless to ban guns,” Signal (“a network of independent, community-led, nonprofit newsrooms,” meaning left-leaning) bemoaned in mid-August. The piece was written after State Attorney General Dave Yost “published a formal opinion ruling that the boards that operate county fairs can’t ban guns on site.”

He was right, of course. Besides the clear “shall not be infringed” proscription of the Second Amendment, Ohio has preemption laws when it comes to guns, meaning the state claims jurisdiction over “gun laws” that political subdivisions (which most fairgrounds are), county, and municipality governments, must abide by. That disallows the unnavigable nightmare of a “patchwork quilt” of conflicting ordinances that would make it impossible for gun owners to travel through the state without running afoul of local edicts backed by armed enforcers.

To make its case that good citizens should be unarmed at fairs, Signal recounts a handful of instances where juveniles and other criminals, who wouldn’t have obeyed a fair gun ban anyway, did stupid, violent stuff, and blamed that on Yost’s declaration.  Allow that argument and the government could ban guns everywhere, in every town, which, of course, is what the prohibitionists have always been after. The anecdotes are just to gin up outrage among the uninformed and manipulable, that is, the marks of the citizen disarmament swindlers and shills.

Firearms News addressed this issue a year ago in the article “Rural Fairs Banning Self-Defense with Guns,” recounting prohibitions in various states, and also recounting incidents where unarmed fair-goers and vendors had been assaulted and robbed at gunpoint. To repeat an obvious truism that no amount of anti-gun hysteria will ever address, only the “law-abiding” obey gun laws. And those who do place themselves and their loved ones at risk, because criminals don’t.

Now, though, unable to impose a property-wide, phony “gun-free zone” in Ohio, disgruntled fair officials are determined to impose what they can by sticking to the letter, but not to the spirit and intent of the law. Per Signal,  “At the Ohio State Fair this year, patrons entered through metal detectors. They can carry weapons openly or concealed outdoors… but not in buildings on the fairgrounds.”

If they want to enter a building, they have to get a handstamp and go lock their gun up in their car, despite the fact that no less a source than the FBI says a gun is stolen from a car every nine minutes in this country, and over half of such thefts are from vehicles. The fair patron then must remain unarmed until they make it back to their parked car.

Vincent L. DeNiro, Editor-in-Chief of Firearms News (established in 1946 as Shotgun News), experienced this nonsense firsthand at the Canfield Fair (Mahoning County Fair, operated by the Mahoning County Agricultural Society) outside the city of Youngstown (where he grew up), which is the largest county fair in Ohio. (The fair ran from August 27 through September 1.) No doubt the anti-gun fair board is none too happy with being forced to allow concealed carry on the grounds, so they’ve redoubled sticking it to gunowners where they can.

“They went to the highest-level putting “No Guns” signs on EVERY building entrance to everything - even tool sheds.” DeNiro reports, including photos that he took on his visit (accompanying this article). “I've never seen a saturation of ‘No Guns’ signs like this.”

That means if you want to see an indoors exhibit, you have to disarm. And not just exhibits. Necessities. “The restrooms at the grandstand have signs,” DeNiro noted. However, some restrooms did not have the restrictive signs. Hopefully, fairgoers’ bladders didn’t act up near the grandstand. “No first aid for you!” he remarked about a “No Guns” sign on the building bearing a large Red Cross, which is usually open for injuries and other medical issues.

Seriously? At some point this becomes full-blown “In your face!” harassment by spiteful anti-gun bureaucrats taking their frustration out on a class of customers they don’t approve of – those who claim their rights and make the fair a safer place by their presence.

The motto of the fair is “Something to crow about!” For good citizens who won’t let usurpers lay claim to their birthright, it’s more like something intolerable to object about, and something to put majority Republicans is state government on notice about.

---