The revamped Department of Justice (DOJ) sided with gun rights last week by delivering an opinion on the federal ban on mailing concealable firearms.
The increasingly unpredictable agency opined that the nearly century-old prohibition violates the Second Amendment. Both gun and commerce rights fall victim to the unlawful federal statute.
On Thursday, the DOJ released its review of the ban and concluded that Washington should no longer enforce the prohibition. It added that USPS needs to update its protocols for shipping firearms.
Pam Bondi’s agency believes that the decades-old law is unconstitutional
- Elliot Gaiser is the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. He wrote that current federal law infringes on the right to keep and bear arms.
“Section 1715 makes it difficult to travel with arms for lawful purposes, including self-defense, target shooting, and hunting,” Gaiser declared. “The statute also imposes significant barriers to shipping constitutionally protected firearms as articles of commerce, which interferes with citizens’ incidental rights to acquire and maintain firearms.”
The stage is set for a legal battle over mailing concealable firearms
Gaiser explained that law-abiding Americans face difficulties transporting firearms in compliance with the ban. Transportation company policies often prevent carrying weapons while utilizing their services, and federal law prohibits mailing them.
He concluded, “The Department of Justice may not, consistent with the Constitution, enforce Section 1715 with respect to constitutionally protected firearms. The Postal Service should modify its regulations to conform with this opinion.”
In 1927, Congress established that ‘pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of being concealed on the person’ are not allowed to be shipped through the mail.
Gun rights advocates recognized the importance of the DOJ opinion. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) immediately issued a press release celebrating the victory.
The SAF wrote that “the federal statute prohibiting the mailing of concealable firearms such as pistols, revolvers, and other handguns is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment as applied to Second Amendment-protected arms.”
The gun rights organization noted that the DOJ action marks a significant policy shift. “The opinion directs the Postal Service to modify its regulations accordingly to align with the Constitution. And it recommends that the statute not be criminally enforced.”
Under current law, just about anyone who does not have a Federal Firearms License (FFL) may not ship small arms through the mail. Instead, these concealable weapons must be transferred through an FFL that will ship and receive the items.
Gun Owners of America Senior Vice President Erich Pratt released a statement praising the long-overdue DOJ action.
“This opinion is a direct rebuke to decades of federal overreach that has unlawfully restricted Americans’ ability to acquire, maintain, and transport their firearms. For too long, law-abiding gun owners have been forced to navigate expensive, burdensome workarounds involving federal firearm licenses, just to ship a handgun—even for perfectly lawful purposes. The DOJ now recognizes what we’ve always known: the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, and that includes the right to acquire and transport them.”
The DOJ did not pull its reasoning out of thin air. Instead, it relied on the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen to reach its conclusion.
The agency rightly asserted that there is no basis in the nation’s history and tradition of gun control to justify the USPS restriction.
Of course, there will be pushback from anti-2A forces. But the DOJ opinion is a giant step in the right direction to remove unnecessary and unconstitutional infringements on both gun rights and commerce.
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