PA Bill Number: HB2663
Title: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal.
Description: Providing for older adults protective services; and making a repeal. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGING AND OLDER ADULT SERVICES
Last Action Date: Nov 19, 2024
Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Austin over City Hall gun ban :: 07/29/2016
The Texas attorney general argues that state law allows guns into most government facilities.
The city of Austin violated state law by banning people from bringing handguns into City Hall, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton charged in a lawsuit filed Thursday.
City officials have refused to allow guns into the building, claiming that occasional meetings of the Downtown Austin Community Court, which addresses low-level offenses primarily committed by the homeless, meant City Hall was exempt from allowing guns in.
“I will always make sure that governments do not trample on the Second Amendment rights of Texans,” Paxton said in a statement, “and if they do, we will sue.” The attorney general’s office said this is the first such suit it has filed.
City officials have dug in for the fight.
“We are prepared to defend this lawsuit and look forward to having this matter resolved by a court,” a city of Austin spokesman said.
Paxton’s petition comes just three weeks after his office issued a nonbinding opinion that found the city’s ban violated a broadly written state statute, which the attorney general argues allows guns into most government facilities.
City officials strongly disagreed with the July 5 opinion and announced they had no plans to change their policy, which Paxton’s office warned could result in a suit and fines — up to $1,500 for the first offense and $10,000 per future violation.
State law prohibits people from bringing firearms into courtrooms or court-related offices, but Paxton’s office has argued that exemption doesn’t apply to Austin City Hall. Even if the building has a courtroom, Paxton’s office said, guns must be allowed in the parts of the building that aren’t reserved for courthouse functions.
The suit comes after two complaints were filed in recent months alleging Austin was out of compliance with the state’s gun laws.
One complaint, filed in September 2015, alleged the city had violated the law by posting signs at City Hall with legal language that announced the handgun ban. It was resolved when the city agreed to take down those signs.
The second complaint, which was filed in April and led to this suit, alleged the city was out of line thanks to another set of signs at the entrances to City Hall — featuring an image of a handgun with a line through it — and by having security officers instruct people to not bring their guns in.
Michael Cargill, a local gun rights activist who filed both complaints, wasn’t immediately available for comment Thursday, but he told the Statesman earlier this month he applauded Paxton’s opinion.
“It’s time the city of Austin stop violating the law,” Cargill said. “If we have to, we will build a wall around City Hall” to keep Mayor Steve Adler in City Hall so he can’t “violate our First or Fourth Amendment rights.”
He added: “This City Council … is totally out of control.”
The attorney general’s office has issued more than a dozen letters to local governments about gun access in their facilities in recent months. Many of the letters simply notified that cities and counties that they were no longer in violation of state law after ending or loosening gun restrictions at their facilities.
For instance, last fall, officials in Hays County asked Paxton what the new gun law meant for their multipurpose government building, which houses courtrooms as well as election offices and the tax collector’s office. The attorney general’s office responded that guns could be prohibited only from court-related parts of the building, an advisory opinion Hays officials adopted as policy.
This spring, Paxton’s office found Dallas County in violation of the law because it banned handguns from its entire county government complex, not just the courtrooms and related offices.
County commissioners there voted in April to follow Paxton’s opinion, but were also considering filing suit to challenge it, The Dallas Morning News reported.
http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local/attorney-general-ken-paxton-sues-austin-city-hall-/nr6gy/
