In this episode, I examine a debate between gun rights and property rights, in the specific context of the decision by the State Fair of Texas to ban firearms.--and the announcement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that he intends to challenge that decision. This isn’t just about rights under the Constitution and Texas statute; it’s also about the freedom to make agreements and finding the right balance between safety and individual freedoms. In this episode, I break down how these legal ideas fit together and what they mean for everyone involved.

In this episode, I interview my old friend Ben Voth, a professor of rhetoric and the director of debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In 2019, Ben wrote a book called James Farmer Jr.: The Great Debater, which discusses how the strategies of civil-rights icon James Farmer were shaped by his debate training (the subject of Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters). I hope that Mr. Farmer's thoughtful eloquence can provide us with some guidance for the difficult discussions of our times.

With apologies for the pun, the Fifteenth Court of Appeals faces an “unprecedented” situation.

Unlike the other intermediate courts of appeal in Texas, the newly created Fifteenth Court of Appeals has no immediate predecessor. The Legislature gave it statewide jurisdiction over specific kinds of cases, as opposed to general jurisdiction over cases from a particular geographic area. As a result, that court does not start with an “inherited” body of precedent.

The Fifteenth Court thus faces a novel—and fundamental—question: what is its precedent?

This episode examines five sources of insight for answering that question: (1) English common law (as defined by a Texas statute dating back to the Republic); (2) “vertical” precedent, as described by a 2022 supreme court case; (3) federal practice about the Erie doctrine; (4) generally recognized conflicts-of-laws principles; and (5) historical examples from the 1840s, when the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas confronted a similar problem with a lack of precedent.