Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating
The Department of Justice has forced an uncomfortable truth into the open. A federal gun law that has survived for generations cannot survive the Constitution.
The DOJ’s legal office on January 15 issued a memorandum titled Constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 1715. The title is dry; the implications are not. The document addresses a long-neglected issue central to the exercise of Second Amendment rights.
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The statute in question dates back to 1927. It bans any concealable firearm from the U.S. mail. Violate it, and you risk prison.
The recent DOJ memo states: “The Department of Justice may not, consistent with the Constitution, enforce section 1715 with respect to constitutionally protected firearms. The Postal Service should modify its regulations to conform with this opinion.”
Why write such a document?
For decades, the statute remained untouched. Like many gun laws that survive on inertia, the postal ban escaped scrutiny not because it worked, but because revisiting it was politically inconvenient. It predates the Gun Control Act of 1968, which forced retail firearm purchases through federally licensed dealers, and ended mail-order gun sales.
After that framework was put in place, the much broader postal ban remained. This created real-world problems for lawful gun owners, with zero public-safety upside.
If you’re moving to a new state, traveling for training, or heading to a competition, you can’t mail your handguns to your destination. If you want to send a handgun back to a manufacturer or a gunsmith to be repaired or modified, you cannot use the U.S. mail.
That alone is absurd.
Add in the reality that traveling with a legally owned firearm through certain jurisdictions can turn into a nightmare – despite federal protections – and the ban becomes something worse. It becomes a trap.
I encountered this myself while traveling as a journalist through jurisdictions where my Virginia CCP was no guarantee against problems in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. I was faced with a choice. Should I mail my firearm to myself, or should I hang onto it and take my chances in places where anyone – not just a woman alone on the road investigating mass murder – needs protection?
For those who face the transport dilemma and chose the mailing option, for years the answer was to use private shipping. That door now is effectively closed.
Both UPS and FedEx have slammed the brakes on firearm shipments from non-FFLs. If you’re not a licensed dealer with a special agreement, you’re out of luck. The result is not theoretical. It leaves lawful gun owners with no lawful way to move a handgun.
The OLC memo doesn’t dance around the issue. It recognizes that creating roadblocks to lawfully move firearms is an infringement on the Second Amendment.
The memo reads: “to frustrate protected arms’ transportability, thereby making it more difficult for citizens to obtain such weapons, constitutes a per se infringement upon the Second Amendment.”
That matters. Transport is not some fringe activity; it’s part of ownership.
For now, the law remains in place. With its memo, though, the DOJ signaled that it will not enforce the unconstitutional measure. The ball is in the postal service’s court. The USPS needs to remove handguns from its list of Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Mail. It needs to drop the needless, decades-old burden on lawful gun owners.
The DOJ got it straight. Gun rights don’t stop at the mailbox.
Susan Katz Keating is the publisher of Soldier of Fortune.
