I am reporting today on a development that, if confirmed, represents a significant and unlawful departure from settled Second Amendment law — and a direct contradiction of this administration’s own stated legal position.
According to a source I consider extremely credible, the United States Postal Service has just informed gun companies that it will no longer accept or transport suppressors and silencers through the postal system. I report this with the caveat that I have not received independent confirmation from USPS itself, and I genuinely hope the report proves incorrect. But my confidence in the source is high. If the policy is real, it is indefensible on two independent grounds — statutory and constitutional.
The Statute Does Not Say What USPS Would Need It to Say
The only federal statute that could conceivably authorize a suppressor-shipping ban is 18 U.S.C. § 1715, enacted in 1927. Its text is precise:
“Pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of being concealed on the person are nonmailable and shall not be deposited in or carried by the mails or delivered by any officer or employee of the Postal Service.”
A suppressor is none of those things. It is an accessory — a device that attaches to a firearm to reduce report. It is not itself a pistol, a revolver, or a firearm under this statute.
Congress’s own subsequent conduct confirms the point. In 1934, just seven years after § 1715’s enactment, Congress passed the National Firearms Act, which expressly includes silencers within its regulated categories at 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a)(7). Congress knew exactly how to name silencers in federal law when it intended to. It did so in 1934. It did not do so in 1927. Under any ordinary canon of statutory construction, that omission is dispositive. USPS cannot import into § 1715 a term Congress deliberately left out.
Suppressors Are “Arms” Under the Second Amendment
Assume for a moment — against all textual evidence — that § 1715 did cover suppressors. The Second Amendment independently forecloses the ban.
The Court held in Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U.S. 411 (2016) — per curiam, with Justice Alito joined by Justice Thomas concurring — that stun guns, which are not firearms, qualify as “arms” protected by the Second Amendment. The definition of “arms” has always been broader than “firearms.” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 581 (2008), embraced the founding-era definition of arms as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.”
Bruen closed the analysis. Justice Thomas, writing for six Justices in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 28 (2022), held that the Second Amendment “covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense.” A suppressor plainly qualifies. It protects a shooter’s hearing during training — the Seventh Circuit held in Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684 (7th Cir. 2011), that the right to maintain firearms proficiency is a necessary corollary of the right to keep and bear arms — and it preserves situational awareness in a defensive encounter inside the home. An instrument that does both of those things is, by definition, one that facilitates armed self-defense.
The Administration’s Own OLC Has Already Resolved This
Here is where the reported policy becomes not merely unlawful but self-contradicting for this administration.
On January 15, 2026, Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser issued an OLC opinion titled Constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 1715. It concluded:
“Section 1715 of Title 18 U.S. Code is unconstitutional as applied to constitutionally protected firearms, including handguns, because it serves an illegitimate purpose and is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation. The Department of Justice may not, consistent with the Constitution, enforce section 1715 with respect to constitutionally protected firearms. The postal service should modify its regulations to conform with this opinion.”
USPS responded by publishing a proposed rule on April 2, 2026, to reclassify handguns as mailable. That rule has not yet been finalized.
The Gaiser opinion’s logic runs directly to suppressors. If § 1715 is unconstitutional as applied to handguns — which the statute expressly names — it is a fortiori unconstitutional as applied to suppressors, which the statute does not name at all. A USPS policy refusing to ship suppressors would contradict the OLC opinion, betray the regulatory course USPS itself has already initiated, and violate the Second Amendment for reasons the Trump DOJ has already articulated in writing.
The Fix Is Clear — Someone Must Make the Call
If my reporting is accurate, the remedy is both obvious and urgent. Harmeet K. Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Robert Leider, Assistant Director and Chief Counsel at ATF, or Gaiser himself should contact Postmaster General David Steiner and establish whether this policy is real. If it is, the instruction must be unambiguous: reverse it immediately.
USPS has no statutory authority under § 1715 to ban suppressor mailing — the statute does not reach them. Even if it did, the Second Amendment forecloses the ban, as this administration’s own OLC has made plain with respect to the same statute. The law is not ambiguous. What is required is the enforcement of the administration’s own position.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.