Posted on 01/14/2024 11:38:40 AM PST by zeugma
In Florida, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has ruled that the federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms inside post offices is unconstitutional. The ruling is based on the 2022 Supreme Court ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen recognized a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
The case concerned Emmanuel Ayala, a U.S. Postal Service truck driver, who had a concealed weapons permit and held a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun in a fanny pack for self-defense. When police tried to stop him, he ran and struggled with officers. While dismissing the possession count, Judge Mizelle left the charge on forcibly resisting arrest.
The provision at 18 U.S. Code § 930 states in part that “whoever knowingly possesses or causes to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility (other than a Federal court facility), or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both.”
Judge Mizelle noted that the law stands in conflict with the Bruen decision. In the course of the litigation, the Justice Department conceded that “[t]here is no evidence of firearms being prohibited at post offices, specifically, or of postal workers being prohibited from carrying them, at the time of the founding.”
Indeed, the government acknowledged that relatively limited firearms prohibitions did not appear “until the mid-twentieth century—over 170 years after the founding.”
The court proceeded to lay out an extensive historical and policy review of the basis for such a ban. It also noted that the sweeping meaning of this provision:
[The] legal principle cannot be used to abridge the right to bear arms by regulating it into practical non-existence. See Baude & Leider, supra, at 35 (identifying this as “probably the most important [Second Amendment] principle”). For example, take the criminal statute here: It bans knowingly possessing a firearm in a Federal facility, which is defined as “a building or part thereof owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing their official duties.” 18 U.S.C. § 930(g)(1). The plain language captures everything from the White House to toll booths in national parks to Social Security Administration buildings. Under this criminal statute, with the proliferation of the federal government comes the diminution of the People’s right to bear arms. At some point, when twenty-eight percent of land in the United States is owned by the federal government and many ordinary activities require frequenting a “Federal facility,” the government’s theory would amount to a nullification of the Second Amendment right altogether.
Ultimately, despite allowing for supplemental briefing, Judge Mizelle expressed frustration with the Biden Administration’s use of generalities and unsupported claims to justify this rule: “I repeat the United States’ single line on this point: “Ayala certainly cannot show that the Second Amendment prevents the government from prohibiting its own employees from bringing guns to work.” Id. That is all. No citation, no authority, no reasoning.”
In the end, the court felt it had no alternative but to declare the law unconstitutional as inconsistent “with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Given the implications of this ruling (not just for postal facilities but all federal facilities), it could well make its way to the Supreme Court.
Read the entire decision here:
United States v. Ayala
The Left will be filling their diapers like a Biden over this...
He resisted the soldiers of the King.
In order to be arrested for resisting arrest, time travel is clearly required.
On a related note, I occasionally follow online discussions concerning possession of a firearm while in a post office parking lot. Say a guy pulls up to a drop-off mail box in the lot. He’s going hunting, and has a rifle in the rifle rack of his truck. Some cop or postal inspector notices that. Can the cop legally arrest the truck guy?
The answer seems to be yes. Truck guy is in trouble. Hopefully this latest ruling will help to fix that.
Because resisting arrest has nothing to do with the constitutionality or the rectitude of the law under which you're arrested. It's a completely different thing. Unless you're a sovereign citizen, of course.
> Being forced to leave your gun in the car does not make anyone safer. <
As I noted in my post #5, if that car is in the post office parking lot you are still breaking the law (I think). I have to say “I think” because there seems to be no firm consensus on that.
Most online law firms who talk about this parking lot thing say you are in trouble. But not all of them do. So if lawyers can’t agree, how can a citizen know what to do? I suppose it’s best to play it safe. The wrong cop would just love to make your life miserable.
I thought the purpose of the law was to protect citizens from post office workers who were at risk of “going postal.”
Resisting arrest can’t be the primary charge.
I gotta be the straight man for that comic line.
No, the purpose of all "gun control" laws is to disarm law-abiding citizens. That is because politicians are doing things to ordinary citizens for which they rightly fear that ordinary citizens might shoot them.
The "gun controllers" never miss an excuse to impose more restrictions. It is about "Public Safety". Theirs, not yours.
Indeed. I recall that.
Seeing as Mailmen getting jumped by local “youths” is a semi regular occurrence maybe they should all carry guns
What if the gun was in the trunk?
> What if the gun was in the trunk? [in a post office parking lot] <
According to what I’ve read, you’re still breaking federal law. But of course the police would have to have a reason to search your car first.
What’s the chance of that happening in one visit, or in a thousand visits? Pretty darn low. Still it’s a shame a citizen has to worry about such things in the first place.
I remember getting my Iowa professional CCW & back then it was state law no guns in hospitals,casinos or Post offices cuz the mail man don’t need help Groton shooting his supervisor!😎
I remember getting my Iowa professional CCW & back then it was state law no guns in hospitals,casinos or Post offices cuz the mail man don’t need help shooting his supervisor!😎
I remember getting my Iowa professional CCW & back then it was state law no guns in hospitals,casinos or Post offices cuz the mail man don’t need help shooting his supervisor!😎 (fixed it)
The security guard at the Social Security office said I couldn’t bring my average sized pocket knife in because it was a federal facility. Really? Maybe this will end that foolishness.
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