The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a new rule that would allow people to mail handguns for the first time since 1927. As discussed below, the proposed rule also goes a step further and rolls back restrictions on mailing rifles and shotguns. If it goes into effect as proposed, the USPS rule would open up a new gun trafficking channel for illicit markets and make it significantly easier for guns to fall into the wrong hands.
The move comes after the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a memorandum opinion in January declaring that a century-old federal law prohibiting people from mailing handguns and other concealable firearms through the USPS was unconstitutional and should no longer be enforced. The OLC also recommended that the USPS “modify its regulations to conform with this opinion.”
The Current System
Currently, federal law prohibits people from mailing handguns and other concealable firearms through the USPS. Instead, you must use a common carrier, such as FedEx or UPS, who only accept firearms from federally licensed gun manufacturers, importers, and dealers — or Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) — with shipping agreements. This system helps protect the public because FFLs are required to run a background check on whoever picks up the firearm to ensure that they can legally possess it. The FFL must also log the gun in their inventory records to assist with crime gun tracing, as discussed here.
The USPS currently allows gun owners to mail rifles and shotguns to other people who can legally possess them in their state, or to FFLs in other states. You can also mail a rifle or shotgun to yourself in another state for “lawful purposes,” such as hunting. The USPS notes that you must name a temporary custodian that will hold onto the firearm package until you can open it.
This system has been effective. Of the 4,082 gun trafficking investigations identified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) between 2017 and 2021 in which a method of transportation was known, 179 (or 4.4 percent) involved common carriers and 131 (3.2 percent) involved the U.S. mail.
The USPS’ Proposed Rule
The proposed rule states that it was written to “expand the scope of mailable firearms compared to the existing regulations by allowing lawful handguns to be mailed under the same terms and conditions as lawful rifles and shotguns.” However, the proposed rule also changes the requirements for rifles and shotguns.
The proposed rule states that all “[l]awful firearms, including pistols, revolvers, shotguns, and rifles, are mailable.” The only “nonmailable” firearms are those that are “otherwise generally unlawful to possess,” including machine guns, silencers, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, and other weapons regulated by the National Firearms Act, as well as undetectable firearms.
Notably, the proposed rule also allows unlicensed individuals (non-FFLs) to mail handguns, rifles, and shotguns “to themselves or another person in another state for lawful activities” (emphasis added). The addition of “or another person” creates a new loophole, and the proposed rule does not place any restrictions on the recipients themselves or require that they undergo background checks, for example.
In this way, the proposed rule undercuts the Gun Control Act, which bars people with felony convictions, domestic abusers, and others from shipping, transporting, receiving, and possessing firearms and ammunition. It also provides a new channel for gun traffickers and straw purchasers, who will use the USPS to skip background checks and avoid paper trails that allow police to trace guns recovered at crime scenes.