Here's your 'test case' for no-guns-in-post-office rules

[Astrocreep]

Post Office Court Case Says No Guns in Post Offices

^^Here's a report on a Fifth Circuit Court ruling on a case involving a man bringing a handgun onto post office property.
Looks like he might have been an employee from the wording of the decision.

The utterly terrifying thing about this story is that he has been convicted of violating a RULE, not a law.
It is not specific about what criminal offense he is guilty of.
The rule he violated is part of 39 C.F.R. (code of federal regulations) which outlines how the post office works.
C.F.R. is not law, but apparently, we can be arrested, tried, and convicted for violating it.
Amazing.

One ray of sunshine:

the court has determined that this opinion should not
be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR.
R. 47.5.4.

-from the footnote on the first page of the document.

Maybe it just applies to that one case.
I doubt it.

Guess I'll be parking across the street from now on.

 

[CarmelHP]

Regulations have the force of law, nothing new.

 

[jeremy]

Uhhh...

From what I read he is an employee of the USPS. Not a customer.

 

[rich8483]

what bothers me is that the gun was in his car not on his person. so if you go to the post office and leave your gun in the car in the parking lot in order to abide by the rules, you are still in violation of that rule. of course you could park on the side of the street depending on the area or an adjacent parking lot i suppose.

 

[Cygnus]

So let's say the post office is in a strip mall.......

 

[hookedonjeep]

Just another reason to quit using "snail mail".

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Test case?

How is this a test case? Firearms in post offices has long been a federal misdemeanor.

What's going on?

 

[Astrocreep]

There has been much debate over the concept of the Post Office being an actual 'government property' or a 'private government-run monopoly'.

The question is generally: Does their 'No firearms' policy have the force of law?

I've read through the state and federal code relating to firearms and can't find mention of the Post Office actually being off limits. If it's there, I'll stand corrected.
Apparently, no one has been arrested for a violation of this policy yet.

This guy, while a postal employee, apparently had a gun in his car on their property.
Normally, in private institutions, you may be subject to termination or trespassing charges, but it seems he was tried and convicted under Post Office regulations.

The problem is that there isn't a law against possessing firearms in the post office, but we can apparently be arrested for it anyway.

@ CarmelHP this tiny debate centers on your very point. Regulations SHOULD NOT have the force of law because they are written by government bureaucrats and not subject to the constitutional process of establishing laws (checks and balances and all that).

What's scary is not the fact that we can't carry in the Post Office, it's that some jerk can just write a regulation and get us locked up willy-nilly.