CCW in Gray Areas

D

Don P

New member
This was probably put before the members before. I couldn't find anything to relate.

Situation: You are headed out for the day, needing to stop and mail a letter using the drive up blue box at the post office. You are outside of the building, but on post office property.

Are you going to CCW or will you leave you CCW at home? Is this a (gray) area or do you feel it is a total disregard for the law if you do CCW.

Here in Florida before the CCW statutes were amended if you lived across the street from a school you were in violation of the law if you owned or were to leave your house with a firearm. (due to distance restrictions and before the amendment)
What say you folks?
 
Your post office example is not a grey area.

You either are or are not allowed to carry in any given place. If you are not allowed to carry in that place and you choose to do so then you have broken the law.

Obviously, laws such as you describe in FL should have been better written from the get-go. In those instances, I would presume that any logical human being would understand the spirit of the law and act accordingly. If possible, clarity of intent should be sought from the appropriate agency in charge of enforcing the law.

The post office example is not a "spirit of the law" situation. The "spirit" interpretation is extremely, extremely limited, lest it become a free for all excuse for ignoring unpopular laws. The post office/federal property law is clear in language and intent in most instances.
 
I did a search and the "experts" are not in agreement. What a surprise.
What gets me, though, is if it's not legal to carry with a permit, why is it perfectly legal to walk in with a boxed-up shotgun and ship it to BFE?
 
No.

There's not a single good reason to carry under those circumstances. There are plenty of places to mail a letter that do not involve breaking the law. Look for a giant blue box near a sidewalk, no law against carrying there. Some of them even face the road so you don't even have to get out of the car.
 
Wonder what the odds would be...

... of getting the Feds to revise the Post Office rules.

They are a major pain, when on road trips.

Since carry is now ok on some other Federal properties (national parks leap to mind), maybe they could revise their parking lot rules. I sense letters to my Senators in the near future...

Thoughts?
 
Since carry is now ok on some other Federal properties (national parks leap to mind), maybe they could revise their parking lot rules. I sense letters to my Senators in the near future...

Thoughts?
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Yes, I think this would be a good idea.

Second on my list would be legal CCW inside parks owned by the federal government and overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). I suspect that a lot of folks may have just said "Huh?", but these parks are commonplace around lakes in TX; almost every single lake in the state is artificial, many of the dams are operated by the USACE, and most of those dams have a park around them, usually with boat ramps, fishing piers, playgrounds, and suchlike. Some of these parks are very remote and operate with even less staff than national parks, and I'm sure many visitors would appreciate the ability to legally CCW.

This may be slightly off topic, pardon my rant. :)
 
carguychris said:
Second on my list would be legal CCW inside parks owned by the federal government and overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). I suspect that a lot of folks may have just said "Huh?", but these parks are commonplace around lakes in TX; almost every single lake in the state is artificial, many of the dams are operated by the USACE, and most of those dams have a park around them, usually with boat ramps, fishing piers, playgrounds, and suchlike. Some of these parks are very remote and operate with even less staff than national parks, and I'm sure many visitors would appreciate the ability to legally CCW.
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Yep, I've come off lakes at 3:00 am in the boonies many times, I would have appreciated being able to legally carry a firearm in many of these cases.
 
Don P said:
Back to the question, would you carry or not?
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But the question proposes Post Office property as if it were a grey area, and subject to state law.

It is a Federal law, and it is in no way a grey area. Concealed or open carry of a loaded firearm is prohibited on Postal Service premises. Once you drive into their driveway, you are on their property and subject to their rules.

Direct answer -- No, I would not carry. Fortunately for me, my local post office is an old building on the corner of two city streets and there IS no public parking. We park on the public street, and the walk-up and drive-up mailboxes out front are on the sidewalk, in the public right-of-way, so I don't have to disarm to mail a letter. If I'm going inside to check my post office box, I leave the blaster in the car.
 
I just mail my letters/bills/packages from my house. Problem solved.

As a side note, It sure was nice to carry through Yellowstone last summer. Thank goodness for that change...
 
Here is another question: What if you are being pulled over for a traffic violation in an unfamiliar part of town and unknowingly pulled off into a federally controlled parking lot (like the post office)? In my state I have to declare my status as a CCP holder. What do you suspect would happen in a situation like that?
 
Here is another question: What if you are being pulled over for a traffic violation in an unfamiliar part of town and unknowingly pulled off into a federally controlled parking lot (like the post office)? In my state I have to declare my status as a CCP holder. What do you suspect would happen in a situation like that?
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I've thought about this too because I live in a college town and I'm afraid if I was ever pulled over while carrying that I might accidentally pull into a parking lot of one of the college's numerous satellite offices that aren't on campus. I don't think this is something to worry about because the police officer is telling you to pull over by flashing his lights and you definitely don't want to look like you're running. I would pull over as soon as possible, declare as soon as possible, and if the cop wants to arrest me for violation of a pistol free zone... that's what the court systems and the media are for (I wonder how quickly it would get dropped once the local conservative radio stations found out about it).

The officer would be understanding, I would like to believe, especially if you say during the encounter "Officer when I see those lights, for your safety and mine, I know it means to pull over immediately so that's what I did."

There is also a thread going on about the right to not self-incriminate in this kind of situation.

I do have an example of a gray area in the law from MI's PFZs

(f) An entertainment facility with a seating capacity of 2,500 or more individuals that the individual knows or should know has a seating capacity of 2,500 or more individuals or that has a sign above each public entrance stating in letters not less than 1-inch high a seating capacity of 2,500 or more individuals.
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Now a lot of movie theatres have individual theatres that do not sit more than 2,500 people but their total capacity is over 2,500. Does this apply to the entire theatre property or only the theatre in which the carrier will be sitting in?

Sometimes I think laws are written like this to trip up people... but maybe I think too low of our politicians... Wait, what?
 
i had to go to the bank and the post office today, and i simply tucked my gun under my seat and did what i needed to do. im sure if you were randomly pulled over or detained on the property the officer would understand that your 30 second errand wasnt a planned terror attack or anything crazy. you may get a good long, stern talking to, but i dont suspect you would be arrested for it.
 
in my opinion

Here is another question: What if you are being pulled over for a traffic violation in an unfamiliar part of town and unknowingly pulled off into a federally controlled parking lot (like the post office)? In my state I have to declare my status as a CCP holder. What do you suspect would happen in a situation like that?
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absolutely nothing besides you getting a ticket, written warning, or verbal warning for your traffic violation unless you didn't follow your states 'inform' law you've added to the dilemma.

of course, if your one of those guyz on "cops" that ends up fighting the police and running or something stupid during the traffic incident, he/she might tack on every extra charge possible
 
Luckily, the post office closest to my work (where I would do most of my postal business) has on street parking on the street adjacent to the PO. I do not enter postal property at all as I park on the street and leave my gun in my truck.

There's also the option of using a UPS Store to ship/mail as they also offer USPS services. Not sure that they offer the full range of services though.
 
Not all UPS stores offer mailing services. The ones near me used to ... but that was when they were Mailbox USA franchises. When UPS bought out Mailbox USA, they stopped offering any postal services other than selling first class stamps.
 
I don't really worry about it unless I am going somewhere where I know there are metal detectors. Where there are metal detectors there is security, where there aren't your ON YOUR OWN.
 
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