USPS Reacts to Court Restoring Second Amendment Rights on Postal Property

In January of 2023, a Florida federal district Court restored the right to keep and bear arms on United States Postal Service (USPS) property. The court ruled a statute banning the possession of guns on USPS property, dating from 1972, was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.  Currently, the ruling only applies to the individual case in Florida. The USPS has issued a statement aimed at employees, stating the USPS policy has not changed. From the USPS:

A recent Florida district court decision is being misreported or may be misinterpreted as holding that the Postal Service’s ban on carrying firearms — either openly or concealed, or storing them on USPS property — is unconstitutional.

In fact, the case dealt with a different federal statute and does not involve the Postal Service’s regulation. Therefore, it does not change the organization’s policy.

Employees are reminded that carrying or storing firearms, other dangerous or deadly weapons, or explosives — either openly or concealed — on USPS property is prohibited and can result in discipline up to and including removal from the Postal Service, as well as potential prosecution.

An outlet dealing with the federal government, focusing on issues which matter the most to “federal agency managers, policy makers and contractors,” quotes USPS spokesperson Jim McKean. From the Federal News Network:

“The Postal Service regulates its facilities for the safety, economy, and convenience of customers and employees engaged in postal business nationwide. One Postal Service regulation in this regard prohibits the possession or storage of firearms on real property under the charge and control of the Postal Service, and that regulation was upheld by a federal court of appeals in 2015,” McKean said. “We are evaluating the interplay between our regulation and the recent interpretation of the broader federal criminal statute and determining the appropriate next steps.”

The case that spokesperson McKean referred to is Bonidy v. USPS. The case was decided in the Tenth Circuit during the period when several circuits were actively working to gut the Second Amendment. Their preferred method was to limit the Heller and McDonald decisions as applying only in the home and as being subject to “intermediate scrutiny.”  From the Tenth Circuit case, Bonidy v. USPS at Courtlistener

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and conclude that the regulation is constitutional as to all USPS property at issue in this case, including the Avon Post Office parking lot, because the Second Amendment right to bear arms has not been extended to “government buildings.” Government buildings, in this context, includes the government owned parking lot connected to the U.S. Post Office. Alternatively, even if we were to conclude that the parking lot did not qualify as a “government building,” we would uphold this regulation as constitutional as applied to the parking lot under independent intermediate scrutiny.

The Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari in the case. This correspondent wrote of it at the time. From Gun Watch March 22, 2016:

It is easy to under stand why Second Amendment supporters on the Court would not want to hear this case at this time.  Antonin Scalia is dead.  There are now only 3 justices on the Court who can reasonably be counted on to uphold the Second Amendment.  They do not want to hear a Second Amendment case that could be used to gut the Amendment.

We do not know who voted to hear the case or not.  But I am not surprised that the Court decided not to hear this case.

With only eight justices on the Supreme Court, it was reasonable not to hear the post office case.

Consider the incredible events that have occurred since March of 2016. Donald Trump was elected President. He nominated and appointed three new justices to the Supreme Court to replace Scalia, Kennedy, and Ginsburg.  The logjam of dedicated Progressive judges on the Supreme Court was broken. For the first time in seventy years, there exists an arguably originalist and textualist majority on the Supreme Court, judges who claim to interpret the Constitution as it was written, not as they wish to use it to advance Progressive policy.

The Bruen decision on the Second Amendment, published on June 22, 2022, told the Circuit courts their attempts to gut the Second Amendment were in error. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a clear, easy-to-understand decision explaining what the Second Amendment means what it meant when it was adopted. It is not the business of the Supreme Court to change the meaning, but to enforce the meaning as adopted. To this end, restrictions on the rights protected by the Second Amendment are only legitimate if they were common and accepted at the time the Second Amendment was ratified. Fourteenth Amendment considerations do not come into play for federal laws and regulations.

There were no federal restrictions on carrying weapons in post offices until 1972. Federal restrictions on carrying guns in post offices are obviously unconstitutional, as Judge Mizelle found.

Restrictions on federal employees are different. They may be controlled by labor law and union contracts.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.