Most Americans would have difficulty conceiving of the ability to mail a handgun from one person to another. Frankly, it’s not something that we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes, and, so, the natural human belief is to assume that that’s the way that it’s always been, to assume that people never mailed weapons to each other.
But according to one 2A advocacy group, that isn’t the case at all, and we should stop living by guidelines that were put into place which don’t reflect the historical way firearms were transported and transferred between people.
It’s, admittedly, a bit difficult to get your head around if you haven’t thought about it before. From the press release at the Gun Owners of America website:
Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), together with Pennsylvania resident Bonita Shreve have filed a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service, seeking to overturn the Prohibition-era federal ban on the mailing of handguns. The Complaint alleges that this ban is “inconsistent with Founding-era historical tradition” of firearm regulation.
Since 1927, federal law has denied ordinary Americans the right to utilize the mails to ship the “quintessential self-defense weapon”: handguns. Yet all the while, the USPS handles handgun shipments on behalf of businesses and government officials every single day. This ban is as arbitrary and discriminatory as it is violative of the Second Amendment – and its criminal penalties are steep.
Imagine being able to put a handgun in the mail and send it to whoever you want (who can legally own a firearm, I would assume). It’s pretty astounding to think of.
Of course, anti-2A zealots will completely freak out if this lawsuit succeeds (and, in light of relatively recent Supreme Court decisions, it should if the courts do the right thing).
But making the heads of anti-2A zealots (figuratively) explode because they lose ground in their attempts to steal our rights is just icing on the cake for me.
Increased freedom for gun owners that never should have been taken away from them is the real prize, and I love to see more and more of that freedom restored.
