BELLEVUE, Wash. — The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners have filed a brief in response to the government’s efforts to limit the scope of the injunction SAF obtained on behalf of its members in its U.S. Post Office carry ban challenge.
In September, the Northern District of Texas ruled in favor of SAF and declared the carry ban on post office property unconstitutional, enjoining its enforcement against the plaintiffs, including SAF members. In response to the ruling, the government filed a motion to limit the scope of the injunction to only the named individual plaintiffs and to members of SAF and its partner organizations, but only to those who were members when the complaint was originally filed and who have been identified and verified.
“The critical thing to remember here is that the government is fighting tooth and nail to continue enforcing an unconstitutional law against as many people as possible,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “The DOJ’s position that it would be ‘impossible’ for it to know who was protected by the injunction without a membership list is just plain silly. If officials want to know if someone found to be carrying at a post office is a SAF member they can simply ask.”
As noted in the brief, “…if the Government believes that merely asking whether an individual is covered by the injunction is somehow “enforcing” the Post Office Ban, there is no amount of information about Plaintiffs or their members that Plaintiffs could give the Government that would render compliance possible.”
Originally filed in June 2024, the lawsuit challenges the ban on carrying firearms in U.S. Post Offices and on postal property. SAF is joined in the case, FPC v. Bondi, by the Firearms Policy Coalition and two private citizens.
“When we file a case, we do so on behalf of all SAF members,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The carry ban on U.S. Post Office property affects countless peaceable citizens nationwide who visit post offices every day to conduct their business. A Federal District Judge has declared the law unconstitutional, and yet the government’s knee-jerk reaction is to continue enforcing it against as many Americans as possible. Decades of settled case law says that it’s wrong.”
For more information visit SAF.org.
Second Amendment Foundation
The Second Amendment Foundation (saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group dedicated to safeguarding and promoting the fundamental rights of individuals enshrined in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. SAF engages in aggressive legal action to ensure the principles of armed self-defense, personal liberty, and the ownership of arms are defended, secured, and restored. Through public education initiatives, SAF teaches the importance of the Second Amendment to promote a society that values and exercises the right to keep and bear arms.
If the ban is unconstitutional for anyone, it’s unconstitutional for everyone. Where in American history has a court decision regarding the constitutionality of a law ever only applied to those who filed the suit?
Simple solution to an unConstitutional law, don’t obey it.
WHen you go into a post office, carry concealed, and say nothing.
In and out. Show your defiance….but quietly.
DON’T take pics, and DON’T post them on social media.
Digital is forever.
UnIess there are armed guards and metal detectors……
Red circIe signs DON’T MEAN SQUAT!
I wonder how many concealed carriers actually remove their firearm before going into the post office?
How do you determine official. membership in SAF? I’ve donated to them numerous times over the past 30 years, I get their mailings frequently, I fill out their surveys. But I have never paid any yearly “dues”, nor have I ever been asked to. I have never been given a yearly membership card, like the NRA has given me since 1969. The same applies to CCRKBA… the SAF affiliated Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Does being on their mailing lists make you an official member?
Of course this is silly. DOJ is proposing that an unconstitutional act is unenforceable against everyone who is not a member of a private club – it is endorsing government action that violates the principle of equal protection under the law. Also, the finding that a government action is unconstitutional is not operative upon the plaintiffs, it’s operative against the government. The DOJ’s position here is that it’s OK to continue the unconstitutional act (of prohibiting entry to certain US government property to armed citizens) with respect to persons who weren’t plaintiffs. Drop the “with respect to persons who weren’t… Read more »
I could go right now to any of the closest 10 Post Office branches to me, and find armed criminals lurking in the alley, watching for potential victims. 24hr unattended drop-boxes and lobbies, in poorly lit areas not anywhere near businesses with people and cameras. If you go in there at night, keep your gun concealed, but adjust your holster under your shirt as you look around, so they will see and wait for an unarmed victim.