Federal judge rules ban on firearms in post offices unconstitutional
Federal judge rules ban on firearms in post offices unconstitutional
A federal judge in Florida ruled a U.S. law that prohibits people from having firearms in post offices to be unconstitutional, the latest court decision declaring gun restrictions violate the Const…
A federal judge in Florida ruled a U.S. law that prohibits people from having firearms in post offices to be unconstitutional, the latest court decision declaring gun restrictions violate the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointee, cited the 2022 Supreme Court ruling “New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen” that expanded gun rights. The 2022 ruling recognized the individual’s right to bear a handgun in public for self-defense.
The judge shared her decision in the indictment that charged Emmanuel Ayala, U.S. Postal Service truck driver, with illegal possession of a firearm in a federal building.
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This is a ridiculous ruling, but the reason the ban on guns in post offices makes many gun owners so angry is that unlike pretty much any other no-gun zone laws, it includes all of the property, including the parking lot.
So if a licensed person removes their gun and leaves it in the car so they can go into the post office, they've still committed a felony by parking there.
So instead they'll park in the street. And if the lot is mostly empty and there's a car parked in the street in front of the post office, it's a bright neon sign to thieves that breaking into that car will score them a gun.
Turns out there's a surprisingly simple way to avoid that whole situation...
Oh man, i lol'd hard at this comment--thank you! 🥂
Some people are required to carry firearms. If your job is armed security, you shouldn't have a potential felony charge for going to the post office after work and dropping a letter in the night drop with your gun locked in the car.
Just have federal buildings follow the laws of the states they're in regarding the definition of premises for firearms. That is - apply it to the buildings, but not to the cars in the parking lot.
You shouldnt take the gun you use for work home. That would solve it.
What's a more secure place for a firearm? Unattended in a locker or actively in the possession of the person licensed to have it?
Locker 100%
How so? Where do you keep your wallet? How about your keys?
The most secure place to store something isn't to leave it unattended. It's to actively have it on your person.
Do you take everything valuable from your house and your car with you from wherever you go? Or do you just lock them up and leave them unattended? Lol
The most secure place to keep something is to leave it locked up in a safe place. A person can get robbed...even if they have a gun, lol
I obviously can't be in physical control of everything I own, but extra precautions have to be taken with handguns. If someone steals my Xbox or camera gear, it sucks. If someone steals my gun it's way more serious.
For my pistol I take extra precautions beyond keeping them in a box at the office that I don't control. I have a hidden safe in the floor of my car bolted down such that removing it would first require the removal of the gas tank. I also have a safe at the house for my long guns that's both hidden and concreted in so that a jackhammer would be required to remove it.
The combination to the safes are in my head and written in a sealed envelope in a safety deposit box in case I die.
Whether it's hidden in a holster, in my car, or at my house my firearms are more secure than keeping them at an office where I have no control over who has access to them.
It's interesting that your only concern is a bad guy taking your gun. Whereas, from our perspective, you are the one who could crack at any time and go on a rampage. If you have a gun for work, you should not have that gun outside of work. You are not responsible for stolen property or damage at work outside of your work hours, unless you willfully leave a weapon unlocked.
I'm worried about thieves and children getting ahold of my firearms, yes. As far as me goong bonkers and killing? Let's look at the science:
Statistically-speaking, concealed-carry holders are the least-likely people to engage in crime. A study on the crime rate of concealed-carry holders versus the general public a while back (citation below) showed that the major crime with the highest ratio of conviction for CHL holders versus the general public was "Deadly Conduct." Which sounds bad until you realize that the general public still got convicted at 20 times the rate of the CHL holders. For sex crimes, intentional killing, and weapons crimes it's 40 times the rate. Assault is 100 times the rate.
All that to say that, assuming you aren't a licensed carrier, you're more likely to murder someone with a gun than me by an order of magnitude.
The numbers are a little outdated now - but with Texas passing the idiotic "constitutional carry" bullshit that lets anyone carry a gun without a license, it's hard to compare now since so few people bother to train and get licensed.
If you're surprised I think constitutional carry is idiotic, it's probably because you think I'm a conservative, when I'm actually a card-carrying liberal democrat. I just live in a world where I actually understand the topic of firearms much more holistically and find the politicization on both sides to be poison to actual, meaningful reforms.
Source:
Phillips, Charles & Nwaiwu, Obioma & McMaughan, Darcy Jones & Edwards, Rachel & Lin, Sherry. (2012). When Concealed Handgun Licensees Break Bad: Criminal Convictions of Concealed Handgun Licensees in Texas, 2001-2009. American journal of public health. 103. 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300807.
I don't take my wallet and keys with me to secure them. I take them with me because there is a good chance I'll want to use them.
See you think that. But I don't think you know the people I know. Even the military locks up guns when they aren't in use.
On a fucking military base. That's slightly more secure than the standard office locker.
Hahaha. Yeah, totally always on base. Never in a random downtown building... They would never ever do that.
Or, and I know this is radical, lock your job weapon up at your office.
FWIW, the amount of security guardsin Florida is pretty small at 0.4032%. I don't know the percent of those who carry for work, but the number of cops that carried (all data 20/21/22) was also small at 0.246%. Combined, that gets us to the measurable number of Job Guns at .649% of the population in 21/22.
The idea that these people's hindrances should even be acknowledged, let alone come into consideration when making or tossing out laws, is fucking absurd.
That's common to all federal property though. I've literally never been to a federal property that wasn't posted for no guns anywhere on the property.
Not all. They carved out an exception for National Parks that has the land adopting the rules of the state in which they're located, with the firearm bans only in place in buildings. They need to do the same with Corps of Engineers parks and post offices.
So, the exception. And it's wilderness area.
Wilderness Area is an entirely different designation from a national park. They aren't administered by the park service but instead by the Forest Service and they don't typically come with amenities/facilities apart from trailhead parking lots, usually a trail system and sometimes designated campsites and the like. Just FYI. Not that it really matters in this context.
Well yeah, except all of the interior land management agencies have wildernesses they mandate. Park, Forest, BLM, and even Fish and Wildlife.
Sooooo, you just leave your gun at home since there is no good reason to carry it around everywhere?
Seriously what's up with Americans and police? In other countries people trust the police because frankly, they can, but also frankly, because they're not insane. Yes, insane, because the obsession people have with guns is insane,and the obsession with safety and freedom is insane as well
It's about consistency of laws. Depending on whether you park in the lot or 15-feet away in the street you're either compliant with the law or subject to a 10-year prison sentence.
This is the problem with having an honest discussion about firearms policies. The reason gun owners refuse to work with the other side for some easy wins (universal background checks, expansion of NICS, enforcement of ownership restrictions, etc) is because the anti-gun crowd won't take a minor victory and jumps straight to the "You're a fucking crazy redneck" argument instead of talking about realistic solutions and what will be most effective. They let their idea of perfect be the enemy of good, while simultaneously making arguments from a place of profound ignorance regarding firearms, and the laws we do end up with in liberal states ban things like thumb-holes in stocks or require technology that doesn't exist.
Straw purchases are still stupidly easy because the political left is frothing about firearms that are used in fewer homicides than blunt objects, a "gun show loophole" that doesn't even exist (an FFL must still do background checks if selling off-site), and muzzle decides designed to prevent hearing damage from firearms that are still louder than a jackhammer.
Meanwhile 99-dollar zinc guns designed and used for murder are sold in piles to straw buyers who then sell them to convicted criminals and nothing is done about it.