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.
