The U.S. Postal Service is currently experiencing an odd administrative limbo that doesn’t typically garner much notice but reveals a lot about how government functions in 2026. About two dozen state attorneys general are already preparing lawsuits to overturn a rule that hasn’t been approved and is technically still in the public comment stage. For the first time since 1927, the rule would permit Americans to mail firearms via the postal service. The dispute over it began before the ink was even close to drying, which is indicative of how completely the regulatory process has evolved into a prelude to litigation rather than a substitute for it.
Because it’s a classic illustration of how executive-branch legal reasoning may reach down and change a century-old policy, the sequence of events that led us to this point is worth outlining. The Second Amendment is violated by 18 U.S.C. § 1715, the Prohibition-era ban on sending concealable firearms, according to a document released on January 15, 2026, by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, whose judgments are binding within the executive branch.
According to Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser, there was no founding-period prohibition on sending guns, and gun limitations must be based on the historical customs of the founding age under the Supreme Court’s recent Bruen framework. He came to the conclusion that the regulation places an excessive barrier on law-abiding individuals attempting to send and receive weapons for ordinary usage.
The OLC opinion accomplished two goals simultaneously. It instructed the Postal Service to amend its regulations and the Justice Department to cease pursuing individuals for mailing firearms. In order to move pistols, revolvers, and other handguns out of the “nonmailable” category and into the same framework already used for rifles and shotguns, USPS published a proposed rule in the Federal Register on April 2 that would amend Publication 52, the complex internal document governing hazardous and restricted mail. Unloaded, safely packed, and devoid of any exterior labels identifying its contents. Submissions were due around May 2 after a 30-day feedback period. The regulation can then be finalized, revised, or withdrawn by the agency.
This becomes truly controversial when it comes to the opposition, and both sides have stronger arguments than partisans typically acknowledge. In a formal letter of objection, the Democratic attorneys general, including Rob Bonta of California and Aaron Ford of Nevada, stated that they are preparing injunctions.
Their main argument is that if the restriction is lifted, the Postal Service becomes a “gun trafficking pipeline” that may circumvent state background-check regulations and undermine efforts made by governments to reduce gun violence. Ford, a candidate for governor, described it as undermining Nevada’s own gun control initiatives. Beneath the hyperbole, there is a serious problem: the 1927 Congress specifically targeted pistols since they are used in significantly more gun crimes than rifles or shotguns.
There is a cogent answer from the gun-rights movement, and it is not insignificant. The practical argument is that prohibiting the sending of firearms creates significant difficulties for law-abiding gun owners while doing little to discourage criminals (someone who is legally prohibited from owning a pistol won’t be deterred by a postal regulation).
Currently, private gun owners have virtually no convenient method to mail a handgun, even to themselves during a move or hunting trip, because UPS and FedEx limit firearm shipping to federally licensed dealers and DHL explicitly prohibits it. This is precisely what the NRA has stated, characterizing the current ban as an unnecessary burden for regular owners. From that perspective, the rule change is more about eliminating a peculiarity of Prohibition-era legislation that primarily affects law-abiding citizens than it is about arming criminals.
The federal government has effectively swapped sides, which further complicates the legal environment. The Trump administration announced that it would no longer defend the 1927 Act in court in the continuing case of Shreve v. U.S. Postal Service, creating the unique circumstance of a federal law without a federal defense. Delaware, New Jersey, and New York filled that void by requesting permission from the judge to directly step in and defend a federal provision that the federal government had abandoned. The judge had not yet decided whether to allow that intervention as of the most recent reports. This is the type of constitutional conundrum that rarely arises when states defend a federal law against the federal government’s own stance.
Beneath all the Second Amendment arguments is a legitimate separation-of-powers issue, which at least one legal expert has identified. The law makes it quite clear that shipping concealable weapons is forbidden. The question of whether the executive branch can effectively repeal a law through a regulatory rule and an OLC memo or if Congress alone has that authority arises when an administrative agency declares that something a legislation forbids is now lawful. “You can’t, as an agency, say something that a statute prohibits is allowed,” one lawyer said. “That’s something only Congress can do.” Because it completely avoids the gun discussion and instead focuses on the legitimacy of the process itself, that argument might wind up being more significant than the Bruen historical study.
The thing that strikes me about this entire incident is that, rather than being a meaningful policymaking exercise, it has turned into a sort of litigation dress rehearsal. Everyone seems to be working under the presumption that this will be decided by the courts rather by the comment process. The states are preparing the record for the lawsuit they want to file, not actually attempting to convince the Postal Service to revoke the regulation.
The government is more concerned with preparing for the anticipated constitutional battle than it is with popular opinion. As you see it happen, you get the impression that the Federal Register procedure has become almost ceremonial here, a box to tick on the way to a courtroom where the actual dispute will take place. The rule’s survival is likely to hinge less on the merits of the gun argument and more on how a judge ultimately resolves the more subdued issue of who gets to interpret a statute after the branch tasked with defending it has left.
