The U.S. Postal Service policy banning people from bringing firearms into post offices violates the Constitution, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday.
Judge Reed O’Connor, a Trump appointee, said both the Post Office’s own regulation and a federal law barring firearms possession in a “federal facility” cannot survive scrutiny after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the Bruen case. That ruling said that for firearms restrictions to stand, they must be consistent with what the founders who crafted the Second Amendment would have envisioned.
Judge O’Connor said post offices existed at the time of the founding. Lawmakers at the time made laws punishing attacks on mail carriers and postal facilities, but did not bar weapons themselves.
It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that a ban was enacted.
“Absent a relevantly similar historical analogue, it is hard to envision that the founders would countenance banning firearms in the post office — particularly because they did not do so themselves,” he wrote.
The Justice Department also argued that the government had more leeway to ban guns on properties it owned because it was acting as a landlord.
Judge O’Connor called that a “Hail Mary” attempt that would amount to permission to circumvent the Constitution.
The case was brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation and several individual gun owners.
Judge O’Connor said the ban cannot be applied to them or the organizations’ members anymore.
“Millions of people across the country visit the U.S. Post Office as part of their daily routine,” said Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation. “Today’s ruling is an encouraging step towards restoring these rights.”
A separate ruling by a different federal judge in Texas went the other way, upholding Congress’s restrictions on interstate gun sales.
Under that law, firearms buyers cannot purchase from a dealer in another state but must have the preferred weapon shipped to a licensed dealer in their own state.
Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, said that was permissible because it functioned more as a commercial law than a prohibition on gun possession.
“Otherwise, citizens will be able to avoid any regulations, such as background checks, required by their state of residence — an affront on state sovereignty,” the judge ruled.
The Firearms Policy Coalition called the ruling “judicial abdication” and vowed an appeal.
“The right to keep arms inherently includes the right to acquire them, and federal regulations that prohibit peaceable Americans from purchasing handguns across state lines are patently unconstitutional,” said Brandon Combs, the group’s president.
