AUSTIN – The Texas Public Policy Foundation has filed suit in federal court on behalf of two Texas gun owners, challenging a federal law that criminalizes the carrying of a firearm onto postal service property, which includes the parking lot.
TPPF believes the case could have broader implications for any American who simply wants to secure their rights under the Constitution.
The case, David McCann v. U.S. Attorney Pamela Bondi, was filed Dec. 17 in the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas, Fort Worth Division.
The lawsuit follows a nearly identical case, Firearms Policy Coalition v. Bondi, that was decided earlier this year in the same court, where gun rights groups secured the right of only their members to carry on postal property. Everyone else, including the plaintiffs in this case, remains subject to the restrictions that the court agreed were unconstitutional.
“What many firearm carriers might not realize is the victory in Firearms Policy Coalition v. Bondi does not apply to individuals who are not members of those groups—which is most firearm carriers,” said TPPF attorney Anelise Powers. “You shouldn’t have to spend months and thousands of dollars litigating about a law that the court has already held unconstitutional.”
In addition to securing the rights of the plaintiffs to carry on postal property, this case will test whether the 1984 Supreme Court case of United States v. Mendoza still acts as a judge-created burden on individuals seeking to secure their rights under the Constitution.
Under Mendoza, the government can force everybody who wants to secure the same rights as their neighbors to completely relitigate claims that a court has already decided.
The lawsuit argues that prohibiting firearms at U.S. postal offices falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment and that the burden is on the government to “affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”
Case No. 4:25-cv-01424-Y
