Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) introduced legislation Friday to block a Trump administration rule proposal that would allow handguns to be mailed via USPS, the same way long guns can be mailed.
On January 15, Breitbart News noted that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued an opinion that the ban on mailing handguns violates the Second Amendment.
In the opinion, OLC pointed out:
Although this statute does not prohibit the shipment of concealable firearms by private companies, major express services currently forbid all persons from shipping firearms, except for some federal firearms licensees that have private shipping agreements. Thus, unlicensed private citizens face a complete ban on shipping concealable firearms, even though handguns are among the core “arms” protected by the Second Amendment.
The opinion concluded with these words: “… the Executive Branch may not, consistent with the Constitution, enforce section 1715 with respect to constitutionally protected firearms, and the Postal Service should modify its regulations to conform with the scope of the Second Amendment as described in this opinion.”
Stevens’s bill is meant to prevent “any proposed or future” regulatory rule change of handgun shipping via the Postal Service.
The Hill explained that the bill “would prohibit the Postal Service from ‘finalizing, implementing, or enforcing’ any proposed or future rule that changes regulations governing the mailing of firearms and uphold a nearly 100-year-old federal ban on the practice.”
Stevens commented, “Michiganders want common-sense safeguards that protect families and support law enforcement, not reckless policies that create new loopholes for illegal guns. … The last thing we should be doing is making it easier for handguns to move through the mail.”
The gun control lobby cheered Stevens’s bill, and gun-control advocate Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) claimed that allowing handguns to be mailed like rifles and shotguns is “flat out dangerous.”
Thompson added, “Families, postal workers, and law enforcement want more safety measures in place, not fewer. … Instead of focusing on lowering costs or protecting our democracy, Republicans are carrying out the whims of the gun lobby and reversing popular safety measures at the cost of Americans’ lives.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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