LA Times: O.C. fairgrounds gun shows firing up once more after judge overturned 2-year ban
BY SARA CARDINE / STAFF WRITER
Once at an existential crossroads — after state legislators enacted a ban on the sale of firearms and ammunition on state-owned property, first in Orange County and then statewide — gun shows have returned to the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.
The Crossroads of the West Gun Show reopened to the public on Friday and will run through Sunday, marking a return to the facility and a decades-long tradition at the site, after the last show closed its doors on Nov. 28, 2021.
Its shuttering came on the heels of Senate Bill 264, authored by state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), a prohibition that applied only to Orange County and took effect on Jan. 1, 2022.
A second piece of legislation proposed by Min, Senate Bill 915, enacted a statewide ban that became law in 2023 and applied to most county fairgrounds, which serve as districted agricultural associations under the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture.
Min claimed the bans closed a “legal loophole,” wherein bad actors took advantage of the legal shows to procure firearms and parts for unregistered ghost guns, either through straw sales or theft.
But the plan to put an end to such activities backfired on Oct. 30, when a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction overturning both bills on the grounds they did little to materially restrict people’s access to guns and seemed to constitute an effort to ban all aspects of gun culture.