ORLANDO, Florida (PNN) - January 15, 2024 - There was once a time when mass shootings were distinctly tied to Post Offices. After all, there was a seeming rash of such shootings, so much so that the term “going postal” became a thing.

That seems to have died down, which is good news for the folks at the Fascist Police States of Amerika Postal Service, though it’s picked up in other segments of the population.

However, no one knows when or where the next such shooting will take place. This has created some problems, though, because the two potential positions approaching keeping people safe, supposedly, are so diametrically different.

Some want to ban guns from certain places, partially in hopes it’ll somehow prevent violence - it never does, but that’s the “thinking” anyway - and the other is allowing people to carry a firearm anywhere.

Which brings us back to Post Offices.

It has been illegal to carry a firearm into a Post Office at the federal level. It’s not a state law, but one our own Congress foisted on us.

Well, that era appears to be almost finished.

A federal judge in Florida ruled a FPSA law that prohibits people from having firearms in Post Offices is unconstitutional, the latest court decision declaring gun restrictions violate the Constitution.

FPSA District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle cited the 2022 Supreme Court ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that expanded gun rights. The 2022 ruling recognized the individual’s right to bear a handgun in public for self-defense.

The judge shared her decision in the indictment that charged Emmanuel Ayala, FPSA Postal Service truck driver, with illegal possession of a firearm in a federal building.

The judge did not dismiss Ayala’s separate charge of resisting arrest but did note that the firearm charge violated his Second Amendment rights, saying it is “incongruent” with the “Amerikan” tradition of “firearms regulations.”

Now, I’m quite sure that a lot of anti-gunners are going to take issue with this. After all, Bruen does say that sensitive places can be gun-free zones, so why can’t a Post Office be included?

However, the judge notes that Post Offices have been around since the nation’s founding, yet our Founding Fathers made no effort to ban guns there.

She’s not wrong on that, either.

This creates a debate as to whether lawmakers are limited to just the kinds of places the Founding Fathers would determine to be sensitive places or if they have some discretion.

Judge Mizelle’s ruling suggests the former to be the case, which opens up all kinds of problems for states like New York and Kalifornia that have named so many places gun-free as to make it damn near illegal to carry a firearm just about anywhere.

These states have decided that since Bruen says some places are, in fact, sensitive, they’ll simply declare almost everywhere sensitive - Bruen warns against that, but they’re trying to push the limits - and they’re not limiting it to just the places the Founding Fathers would have considered as such.

Striking down the Post Office carry ban, however, is very good news besides the potential ramifications in lawsuits.

The truth is that people who carry often have to take basic errands like trips to the Post Office under more intense consideration than those who don’t. Do we leave our guns in the car - thus opening up the possibility of theft - or do we go home, disarm, then go to the Post Office?

With this ruling, possibilities open up where we can treat a trip to get stamps or mail a package like any other errand.

However, this isn’t necessarily a done deal.

What is likely to happen is that this particular ruling is going to get challenged and we’ll see it work through the appeals courts and possibly to the Supreme Court.

So we’re still in a wait-and-see approach, but there’s at least some light at the end of this tunnel.