Ultimately, despite allowing for supplemental briefing, Judge [Kathryn Kimball] Mizelle expressed frustration with the Biden Administration’s use of generalities and unsupported claims to justify this rule: “I repeat the United States’ single line on this point: “Ayala certainly cannot show that the Second Amendment prevents the government from prohibiting its own employees from bringing guns to work.” Id. That is all. No citation, no authority, no reasoning.”
In the end, the court felt it had no alternative but to declare the law unconstitutional as inconsistent “with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Given the implications of this ruling (not just for postal facilities but all federal facilities), it could well make its way to the Supreme Court.
[Mizelle may not have had much to work with from the White House, but she made the best use of the plaintiff’s motions. She points out that the federal government controls over a quarter of the land in the US, and that the reasoning behind this rule is a tantamount de facto carry ban in many places. If this goes to the Supreme Court, the entire rule could get thrown out. The Biden administration might want to consider that when deciding whether to appeal this out of the district level and into a precedential level. — Ed]
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