Why Are Guns Banned in Post Offices, Anyway?

If the answer to that question is, “Well, that’s just how it is,” then we should ask again, more loudly.

For decades, we gun owners have simply accepted that if we’re going to carry concealed, we can’t go to the post office. It’s been illegal to bring a firearm into a post office since 1972, but, like all “gun free zones,” criminals feel completely free to ignore it. There was a highly publicized post-office mass shooting in 1986, 14 years after the ban, and carried out by a disgruntled employee, not a citizen customer. (For you whippersnappers, the Edmond, Oklahoma massacre is where we got the phrase “going postal.”)

So here’s the real question: If the Second Amendment specifically says that the government cannot infringe upon our right to keep and bear arms, then why are government-owned facilities allowed to ban guns? That’s the question the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is asking right now, and they’re doing it in a Texas federal court. Here’s what SAF has to say about it:

“The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit in Texas challenging the ban on firearms carry in U.S. Post Offices and on postal property as violations of the Second Amendment, and is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.

Joining SAF is the Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens, Gavin Pate and George Mandry, both Texas residents. Named as the sole defendant is Attorney General Merrick Garland, in his official capacity. The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division.

Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys R. Brent Cooper and S. Hunter Walton at Cooper & Scully, P.C. in Dallas, and David H. Thompson and Peter A. Patterson at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C.

“Under the Bruen ruling of June 2022,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “if the government seeks to restrict firearms in a particular location as a ‘sensitive place,’ it must prove that its current restriction is sufficiently analogous to a well-established and representative historical analogue.”

“Current federal law bars the ‘knowing possession’ of firearms in federal facilities, which includes post offices,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “Millions of legally armed private citizens, whose daily routines may include visits to post offices to pick up or drop off mail, are directly impacted by this infringement. There is no well-established, representative historical analogue to justify this regulation, which violates the Second Amendment.”

David Bronson

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