AG Jennings intervenes in USPS case that would allow guns to be mailed with virtually no limits

Attorney General Kathy Jennings, alongside Attorneys General for New York and New Jersey to today intervened in a federal lawsuit to defend a critical federal firearms law after the Trump Administration declined to do so, seeking to prevent a flood of prohibited weapons flooding state borders by mail.

In 1927, Congress passed a statute (18 U.S.C. 1715) to bar the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from mailing certain concealable firearms. That statute has stood, without any court finding it invalid, for the last century. Just last year, however, a group of plaintiffs challenged the law in Shreve v. USPS, a pending case in a federal court in Pennsylvania. In January 2026, shortly before its brief in Shreve was due, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) instead issued an opinion concluding the statute is unconstitutional as applied to certain firearms, including handguns. DOJ stated it will no longer enforce this commonsense statute and instructed USPS to issue conforming regulations.

Since the federal government refuses to defend the century-old statute, the States are filing an intervention motion asking the court to allow them to step in, and a summary judgment motion explaining why this statute is constitutional.

"If you needed any more confirmation that this Administration is bought and paid for by the gun lobby, look no further," said Attorney General Kathy Jennings. "There is no good reason - none - to do away with a nearly century-old common-sense gun safety measure like this one. If the White House isn't going to step up to keep this law in place, then we will."

The briefing explains the harms that would follow for the states and their residents if a court struck down this statute. As the states explain, an order undermining this statute would risk allowing individuals prohibited from owning a firearm-including convicted felons, domestic abusers, and individuals subject to restraining orders-to get a gun though the mail, contrary to state licensing and permitting laws. And the types of guns that might be mailed across state lines include those prohibited by state law, such as ghost guns.

In other words, people who are barred by state law from purchasing weapons would gain a new way to acquire them via the mail, without undergoing a background check. Moreover, they could also obtain weapons that are otherwise illegal to possess in those states.

That will have a significant impact on the States. Unlike common carriers like UPS, DHL, and Federal Express, USPS has no statutory obligation to ensure the packages it carries comply with state laws on the acquisition or transfer of firearms, creating a loophole in state laws.

The changes opposed by the plaintiff states would also inhibit the states' ability to identify the sellers and purchasers of guns used in crimes through the ATF's ETrace system. In 2023, Delaware used data from ETrace to successfully identify the purchasers of 79% of such guns searched in 2023. Without that data, law enforcement agencies will have higher administrative and investigation costs as criminal investigations will become more expensive and time consuming. Indeed, state law enforcement will have to create an entirely new investigative and tracking structure to account for the unregulated mailing of concealable firearms through USPS. And that tracing will be harder: if individuals can simply circumvent the federal firearm licensees system by mailing concealable firearms via USPS, state law enforcement will have a reduced probability of identifying the path a gun traveled before it was used in the crime, which helps identify firearms traffickers.

Simultaneously, the states are also filing a brief explaining why this federal law comports with the Second Amendment. This law, the briefing explains, does not implicate the Second Amendment because it governs only whether and when USPS can mail firearms; it does not regulate the right to keep and bear arms. And the law is consistent with the Nation's tradition: for most of the Nation's history, firearms were not accepted for mailing by USPS. Congress's decision in 1927 to avoid having USPS assist mailing guns that may be in violation of state or local laws, and therefore to make it more difficult for criminals to obtain concealable weapons, was a constitutionally valid choice.

All three states have some of the strongest gun laws in the country and correspondingly low levels of gun violence. Delaware law, for example, prohibits the possession of certain assault firearms, firearm silencers, and other categories of particularly dangerous weapons. Delaware requires individuals seeking to purchase a handgun to obtain a Handgun Qualified Purchaser Permit and requires a background check for any sale or transfer of a firearm between unlicensed persons to be conducted through a licensed firearm dealer.

Today's motion to intervene and motion for summary judgment were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.