Texas AG Ken Paxton
As if he weren’t busy enough suing the federal government, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton managed to make time to sue one of his own state’s 254 counties, defending people’s right to carry guns in government offices.
Paxton sent out a press release today bragging that he has sued Waller County “to bring it into compliance with the state’s licensed carry laws.”
According to the press release, Paxton “gave Waller County final notice to comply with the law” on Aug. 10. When county officials refused to give in Litigious Ken (I’m borrowing from the Donald Trump playbook and giving him a catchy nickname) decided to sue. (Last week, in announcing that he had filed suit against the federal government over HHS regulations banning discrimination against transgender people in health care, Paxton noted it was his 13th lawsuit, in less than 2 years, against the federal government.)
Paxton’s press release notes that the lawsuit “requires [Waller] county to allow citizens to lawfully carry firearms in areas of the Waller County Courthouse that contain non-judicial county administrative offices, such as the county clerk, county treasurer and county elections offices, as the law requires.”
The press release goes on to quote Litigious Ken as saying, “A local government cannot be allowed to flout Texas’s (sic) licensed carry laws, or any state law, simply because it disagrees with the law or doesn’t feel like honoring it. I will vigilantly protect and preserve the Second Amendment rights of Texans.”
Let me take a moment to remind you all that the man who is so diligently demanding that Waller County follow the law has already been fined by the Texas State Securities Board, in 2014, for failing to disclose that he had been paid to solicit investment clients on behalf of a firm that was paying him a commission, and now faces additional state and federal securities fraud charges. You can read about it here in this Texas Monthly article. Apparently he’s the only person allowed to flout the law because he doesn’t feel like honoring it.
I will give him this, though: Paxton isn’t demanding that Waller County do anything he isn’t willing to do (except, you know, obey the law). I called and checked, and his office in Austin allows those with licenses to carry to bring their guns into his offices.
