Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) proposed an amendment Wednesday to remove the federal ban on guns in post offices during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee meeting.
The National Association for Gun Rights, a pro-gun group that sets itself apart from others such as the NRA by identifying as a grassroots movement, posted on its website earlier this week encouraging its members to “stand with Senator Paul by taking action right away” and contact other members of the committee who are “preparing to fight tooth-and-nail against Senator Paul’s proposal.” In the same message, the association also claimed that “’Gun-free zones’ are really ‘criminal safezones’ that only serve to provide would-be criminals with a place to find unarmed victims” and that “no law-abiding citizen should be disarmed and placed at the mercy of would be criminals.”
Prior to a recent ban, U.S. Post Offices had been the venue for several mass shootings including an incident in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986 that ended up coining the term “going postal” to describe workplace violence.
Paul’s suggested provision wasn’t added to a bill about other unrelated post office changes; committee members said the idea would require more study first.
Paul’s move is the latest to seek expanded gun rights. In the months after the Newtown Massacre, more senators voted for an amendment to weaken gun safety laws than the major initiative to strengthen them through expanded background checks. The only gun safety bill that congress passed in 2013 was a 10-year reauthorization of the 25-year-old Undetectable Firearms Act which requires 3D-printed plastic firearms contain a small amount of metal, allowing metal detectors to notice them.