The US government cannot constitutionally keep people from carrying guns in and around post offices, Texas USDJ Reed O'Connor ruled Tuesday, finding that such restrictions lack a historical basis. Cited the SCOTUS 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which set a new standard for Second Amendment cases whereby gun restrictions have to be "consistent with this nation's historical tradition" in order to be constitutional. Judge O'Connor found that although mail carriers and post offices have faced threats since its founding, the government only banned firearm possession on postal property a little over 50 years ago.
Here is Judge Reed O'Connor's 'logic,' if you could call it that: "Even after the government started housing post offices in federal buildings in the early 1900s, it waited until 1964 to prohibit guns in federal buildings and 1972 to specifically prohibits firearms on postal property. In other words, even though Congress and the founders were aware of the general societal problem' of violence towards the postal service, the prohibition against firearms in post offices or on postal property did not appear until nearly 200 years after the founding." In 2024, two gun rights groups, the Firearms Policy Coalition and the Second Amendment Foundation, as well as two shills for the gun lobbies, challenged a federal law prohibiting possessing a "firearm or other dangerous weapon" in a "federal facility." The gun lobby is doing a fantastic job ensuring that firearm proliferation throughout the US is more important than keeping Americans safe and secure from being shot. So, now we can expect shootings again in post offices which led to the term 'going postal.' Every eleven minutes in the US, someone is killed with a firearm, either by an assailant or a self-inflicted wound.
