Latest news with #GunOwnersFoundation
USA Today
19 hours ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Gun groups want law reversed on mailing through postal service
Two gun organizations are challenging a 1927 federal law prohibiting mailing handguns through the U.S. Postal Service. Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, together with Pennsylvania resident Bonita Shreve have filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Pennsylvania against the United States Postal Service. The Pennsylvania resident wants to mail her father a handgun as a gift, according to the filing, but is prohibited by federal law and Postal Service regulations. In their filing the plaintiffs argue that the Postal Service allows businesses and government officials to ship handgun and that individual Americans should have the same ability. Private shipping companies like UPS and FedEx have policies prohibiting shipping a handgun, the filing states. "The federal government's Prohibition-era ban on mailing handguns violates the Second Amendment," Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, said in a statement. Sam Paredes, with the Gun Owners Foundation, said in a statement that the law was passed in a different time. "Every day this ban remains in effect, it infringes on the rights of law-abiding Americans who are fully entitled to exercise all of their Second Amendment freedoms," Paredes said. Mailing a handgun is currently a Class E felony punishable by up to $250,000 fine and two years in prison. A spokesperson for the Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Second Amendment groups file for summary judgment in bid to overturn Florida's open carry ban
Gun-rights groups are pursuing several strategies to win the right to openly carry firearms in Florida. (Photo by Matt Rourke/The Associated Press) A Palm Beach gun owner and two Second Amendment groups have filed a motion for summary judgement in their federal court challenge to Florida's law banning individuals from openly carrying firearms, claiming the law is unconstitutional. Gun Owners of America, the Gun Owners Foundation, and gun owner Richard Hughes originally filed their lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida last August, alleging that the law banning open carry violates the Second and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution and places them, their members, and their supporters at risk of being arrested and prosecuted should they openly carry firearms in public. St. Lucie County Sheriff Richard Del Toro is the lone defendant in the case. In their lawsuit, Hughes and the two gun rights organizations list him because the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office warned the public after the state legalized what is known as 'permitless carry' in 2023 that '[t]he law is not open carry; open carry is still illegal under most circumstances.' In 2017, the Florida Supreme Court upheld state restrictions on openly carrying a firearm, ruling in Norman v. State that the law did not violate citizens' Second Amendment rights in a case brought by Dale Lee Norman, a St. Lucie County resident who faced a second-degree misdemeanor charge after he walked down a road with handgun holstered to his hip, according to the Courthouse News Service. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The federal lawsuit says that state Supreme Court ruling failed on a couple of fronts: for 'not once consulting contemporaneous authorities to discern the meaning of the Second Amendment's text' and for failure to conduct an historical analysis of the 'nation's early tradition as to open carry — or any tradition, for that matter.' 'This case is personal for me and millions of gun owners across the state,' said Luis Valdes, Florida state director for Gun Owners of America. 'Florida likes to brand itself as pro-Second Amendment, but this ban proves otherwise. We are fighting to restore a right that never should've been taken away — and we won't stop until every Floridian can carry openly, freely, and constitutionally.' 'Florida's open carry ban is an outdated and unconstitutional relic,' Sam Parades said in a statement on behalf of the board of directors for Gun Owners Foundation. 'The right to bear arms means exactly that — to carry arms, not just to keep them locked away.' Florida remains one of only five states in the nation that bans the open carrying of a firearm, the others being Illinois, Connecticut, New York, and California — a list of blue states that Florida does not usually share an alliance with. Gov. Ron DeSantis has said on several occasions that he supports open carry, and First Lady Casey DeSantis weighed in as well earlier this year, writing on X that, 'It's time for the Free State of Florida to join other states in enacting open carry! Sounds like a great priority for our GOP supermajority. This is the year.' But it wasn't the year for open carry in Florida's GOP-dominated state Legislature. Senate President Ben Albritton stated his opposition to overturning the ban in his first day as leader while meeting with reporters last November. A trial date has been set for November 3, 2025. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
