We reported last year how the pro-gun group Gun Owners of America (GOA) had filed a lawsuit challenging the nearly-century-old law that deems it illegal to ship handguns via the United States Postal Service (USPS).
In January of this year, in the case Shreve v. USPS, the federal government, through the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ), released an important opinion that the federal statute prohibiting the mailing of concealable firearms such as pistols, revolvers, and other handguns is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment as applied to Second Amendment-protected arms. The DOJ noted that the law “ultimately aims to suppress traffic in constitutionally protected articles, thus rendering the law per se unconstitutional as to those articles, and we are aware of no historical analogues” that would show this “unprecedented restriction is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
For those who thought that might be the final nail in the coffin of that law, litigation concerning firearms is always more complicated than it seems. On March 2, attorneys general from three anti-gun states—New York, New Jersey and Delaware—filed a motion to intervene, along with a request for summary judgment dismissing the lawsuit and a ruling in favor of the USPS.
“Because the federal government recently announced that it will no longer defend this law on the merits, this Court should grant New Jersey, New York, and Delaware the ability to intervene to provide the Second Amendment defense that no other party currently will,” the AG’s motion states. “Courts have repeatedly made clear that putative intervenors should be allowed to participate when they have interests that would be impaired by an adverse judgment not protected by any other party, and intervention would not prejudice existing parties.”
Few readers should be surprised that leading the effort is New York Attorney General Letisha James, herself under indictment for real estate fraud. James, like many New York politicians has never seen a gun control law that she didn’t support.
“Firearms trafficked from other states are a major source of gun violence in communities across New York,” James said in a news release. “Laws like Section 1715 are critical to our efforts to stop the flood of dangerous weapons that are putting New Yorkers at risk. If the federal government won’t defend this law to keep people safe, we will.”
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, in a news release announcing the filing, also got in on the Trump bashing.
“If the Trump Administration refuses to defend critical federal firearms law, the states’ chief law enforcement officers will rise to the challenge,” Davenport said. “Federal law prevents USPS from mailing guns to circumvent critical state background check laws, a key tool to keep guns out of the hands of felons, domestic abusers, and individuals in mental health crises. Just as I am proud to defend those commonsense state laws, I am proud to defend the federal laws that ensure our background check systems can do their job.”
It’s notable that the AGs are spending their constituents’ hard-earned dollars to fight for a law that negatively impacts all Americans. Alas, it’s not the first, and probably won’t be the last, time that New York, New Jersey and Delaware gun owners feel shame for what their state leaders are doing.
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