The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee passed legislation regarding the United States Postal Service reform last Thursday that included an amendment allowing customers to carry firearms on post office property.
The reform of the USPS was mainly focused on post offices in rural areas, but the 2nd amendment was also mentioned in legislation.
The bill focused on keeping rural post offices in business. Daniel Head, press secretary of U.S. senator Mike Enzi, said that, “the bill included a number of reforms across the Postal Service.”
These reforms include how pro health and retirement benefits are provided for postal employees and annuitants, how the Postal Service manages its mail processing capacity and Postal Service standards postal rates and how the governance structure of the Postal Service operates.
Enzi said the bill helps to protect post offices in rural areas from closing while postal rates are restructured.
Enzi said the bill will go a long way to make the postal service capable of succeeding by putting competition into its business plan and helping to get the costs under control.
Enzi believes that the Postal Service should learn from how real world businesses operate.
“Any business is supposed to look at all of its costs every year, all the time,” said Enzi in a news release. “The Postal Service should be no different.”
The last time postal reform was on the agenda, a list of post offices were considered for closure without any discussion of the costs needed to run them.
Enzi’s amendment to the bill would require the USPS to provide information on the costs associated with its operations to postal customers and local governments. It would also provide an opportunity for ideas and plans for possible changes to be heard.
Enzi’s amendment would also require the USPS to give communities 60 days to develop an alternative for providing postal services to the community before any location can be closed.
A portion of the bill deals with the second amendment in regards to Postal Office property. The amendment would allow firearms in the parking lots of post offices.
Currently the Postal Service has rules prohibiting firearms from being on postal property at all.
“The bill would allow individuals to carry firearms in parking lots of post offices in accordance with state and local laws,” said Head.
He also said that this has been an issue and individuals are being prosecuted for having firearms in their cars while picking up or sending mail.
This poses a problem for rural communities, especially in Wyoming with the very relaxed regulation on the concealed carrying of firearms.
Enzi said that, “imaginary lines should not take away our constitutional rights.”
Enzi said he was disappointed that Sen. Rand Paul’s amendment was voted down.
“Paul’s amendment would have expanded the right to carry a firearm to all postal property,” Enzi said.
A summary of the postal reform bill can be found at the Library of Congress’s legislative information database.
