Atlanta’s Music Midtown has been canceled only a month and half earlier than the pageant had been set to start. Although the Reside Nation-owned occasion solely cited “circumstances past our management,” studies have it that Georgia’s extremely lenient open carry gun legal guidelines are the trigger.
Atlanta-based journalist George Chidi tweeted concerning the seemingly cancelation of Music Midtown final Friday, noting he’d heard that “it’s as a result of Georgia’s gun legal guidelines make it unimaginable to bar firearms from Piedmont Park, a situation required by many artists’ live performance riders” (through Rolling Stone).
Former Governor Nathan Deal signed HB60 into regulation in 2014; the invoice was dubbed the “weapons in all places” invoice by media retailers. Primarily, the regulation significantly lowered limitations on open carry, permitting gun house owners to deliver their firearms into nearly any public house together with church buildings, bars, authorities buildings — and public parks.
To check the boundaries of the regulation, gun rights advocate Phillip Evans purposefully carried a handgun into the Atlanta Botanical Backyard, which leases its land from the Metropolis of Atlanta however had a gun ban in place for its property. That case wound its approach by way of the Supreme and Appellate Courts for eight years, lastly reaching a conclusion again in April: The Botanical Backyard might actually ban firearms as a result of it has a long-term lease with Atlanta.
That is the place Music Midtown is available in: Reside Nation’s lease to carry the occasion at Piedmont Park is short-term, regardless of it being held there since 2011. The Supreme Court docket’s current ruling within the Botanical Backyard case left it open that such short-term leases don’t grant “property for years” standing, and thus lease holders can not impose their very own gun-free guidelines on public areas.
The ruling didn’t explicitly outlaw gun-free guidelines from being imposed, and certainly Music Midtown’s prohibited objects listing contains “weapons or explosives of any sort.” What the regulation does do, nevertheless, is make it practically unimaginable for the annual occasion or any pageant to implement any such guidelines, as native authorities are closely concerned in safety and wouldn’t have the ability to implement what quantities to an unlawful ban. What’s extra, it opened the likelihood for Evans to file an identical lawsuit towards Music Midtown if it tried to bar him from the occasion whereas he carried a firearm — one thing he instantly threatened to do.
As Chidi famous, many artists have added gun-free clauses to their tour riders, particularly given the current epidemic of mass shootings and tragedies like 2017’s Route 91 Harvest Music Competition in Las Vegas. Past which, the very thought of permitting individuals to enter a crowded house the place alcohol is flowing, warmth is thrashing down, and security needs to be a first-rate concern is straight up nonsense.
With Music Midtown unable to legally implement a gun-free zone on its pageant grounds, Reside Nation had no alternative however to cancel the 2022 occasion. Initially set for September seventeenth and 18th, this yr’s fest was set to characteristic My Chemical Romance, Jack White, Future, Fall Out Boy, Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, Phoenix, and extra.
Tl;dr: As a result of Georgia desires to let individuals carry firearms right into a crowd of fifty,000 the place alcohol is being served, we will’t have good issues.
Hey Midtown followers – attributable to circumstances past our management, Music Midtown will now not be happening this yr. We had been wanting ahead to reuniting in September and hope we will all get again to having fun with the pageant collectively once more quickly. pic.twitter.com/cI5M37UNW8
— Music Midtown (@MusicMidtown) August 1, 2022
