Federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, of the Middle District of Florida, ruled that the ban on firearm possession in post offices is unconstitutional, in US v. Ayala. She cites the BRUEN test of general, historical legal tradition.
Mizelle gave the government multiple chances to present some evidence of such historical tradition. The best they could do?
the United States fails to point to sufficient historical evidence supporting § 930(a)’s application here. (providing only two paragraphs listing potential historical analogues without any analysis of how they are relevantly similar).
Mizelle herself did much more. Using USPS documents, she demonstrated that there has been a longstanding tradition of mail robberies and assaults; in a postal system itself of longstanding — pre-Revolutionary War — tradition. Yet never, until 1964 were firearms banned from any federal facility. The first specific post office gun ban was 1972. 18 U.S. Code § 930, the law under which Defendant Ayala was charged, didn’t come about until just 1988.
Mizelle took the government on a tour through American history, giving specific examples of the post office allowing clerks to arm themselves, and (again citing a USPS reference) “the Postmaster General armed railway mail clerks with “government-issued pistols” from World War I.” (emphasis in the original)
This is a lady who clearly read and understood Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ BRUEN decision. In fact, in a conversation I mentioned that this decision reads like she was a Thomas protégé. Which prompted me to look up Judge Mizelle
She clerked for Clarence Thomas. I think he can be proud.
By the way, for those interested, Mizelle was the same federal judge who struck down the fed ChinCOVID mask mandates.
My grandfather’s brother was sort of the Black Sheep of the family. He was shot and killed on the steps of the post office in the small town of Sparta, MI. Apparently he was caught robbing the place and the police took acception to that fact and shot him.
The newspaper of the time said that he was a notorious character and well known to the police.
My grandfather was nothing like that, but he was a very nice and kind man, who spent his live working as a laborer. He died when I was only 5 but I remember him fondly.
Any USPS facility I enter ceases to be a Gun-Free Death Zone (GFDZ), federal infringements be damned. I conceal carry so unless the need arises, no one will ever know.
If memory serves me correctly, that law really went into force after a few mass shootings at postal facilities carried out by wiggy postal employees, creating the term “going postal.”