Three State AGs Want to Defend Federal Ban on Shipping Guns Through Post Office

If you wanted to ship a gun somewhere, you had to send it through a private carrier. The United States Postal Service was off the menu, and that was just the way the law worked. Only, those private carriers wouldn’t let regular folks ship guns through them, which left the postal service, and since that was off the table, your options of shipping a firearm lawfully were nil, which sure feels like a violation of the Second Amendment.

And, in time, the Department of Justice agreed and opted to stop defending the law in a legal challenge. As of today, you can ship a gun via the USPS if that’s what makes the most sense for you.

However, some of the usual suspects have a problem with that, apparently, and they want to step in and defend the law since the DOJ won’t.

Three states say they will stand up for gun-control laws that the Trump administration will no longer defend and fight the shipment of firearms through the mail.

The attorneys general of New York, New Jersey and Delaware want to intervene in a Pennsylvania federal court case that challenges the prohibition of mailing guns through the U.S. Postal Service. The AGs said in a Monday brief that their involvement is needed because the federal government will no longer defend the law.

Allowing citizens to transport firearms through the mail would impair states from enforcing their own safety laws, they say.

“Those interests are no longer represented by the Federal Defendants, which no longer offers any defense of this critical public safety law on the merits, based on their unprecedented determination that this longstanding federal statute is unconstitutional, at least in certain applications,” their motion says.

Bonita Shreve and Gun Owners of America sued the U.S. Postal Service July 14 in Johnstown. Shreve, of Blair County, has no intention of making the three-hour drive to her father in Eastern Pennsylvania to deliver a handgun.

Because she does not hold a Federal Firearms License, Shreve can’t send the gun through a private service like UPS, leaving the Post Office as her last option. But a 1927 law says she can’t, so nearly 100 years later its constitutionality is challenged in her lawsuit.

There are exceptions to the law for members of the military, but Shreve and her father don’t qualify. Co-plaintiff Gun Owners of America says it has more than 2 million members and supporters, some of whom would also wish to use the Post Office to ship guns.

And the truth is that a lot of times, shipping a gun has to be done.

If you want custom work done from a particular gunsmith who doesn’t live in driving distance, you’ve got to put it in a box and send it. As it stands, you’ve got to get your FFL to handle the shipping, which is ridiculous.

And for what?

The last time I looked, criminals in New York City, Trenton, or Philadelphia weren’t exactly hurting for access to firearms. They seem to have no issue getting them from various sources, even with the prohibitions, so why are we causing problems for law-abiding citizens, creating no avenue for the lawful shipment of firearms at all, when the status quo accomplishes nothing?

Even if it did, I’d oppose it on Second Amendment principles, but a lot of people don’t share those, so again, I ask, why do something that’s proven not to work?

The law in question dates back to Prohibition, and it was intended to stop the mob from sending guns all over the place. The fact that they were shipping liquor hither and yon apparently didn’t strike anyone as relevant when they drafted this, apparently, and now the law is even more ridiculous.

If these states are allowed to step in, it shouldn’t do anything except make the current status official as I sincerely doubt the Supreme Court is going to actually side with these three AGs on this one.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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