Pro-gun rights

Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation Win Landmark Legal Victory Over USPS Firearms Shipping Restrictions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEAS

January 15, 2026

Springfield, VA — Today, Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) hailed a landmark opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) declaring that 18 U.S.C. § 1715—the federal statute prohibiting the mailing of concealable firearms such as pistols, revolvers, and other handguns—is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment as applied to Second Amendment protected arms. This opinion was issued after GOA filed suit in Shreve v. U.S. Postal Serv., No. 3:25-cv-214 (W.D. Pa. July 14, 2025) on behalf of its members, seeking to have this exact ban declared unconstitutional. 

In its memorandum opinion for the Attorney General, the OLC concluded that the U.S. Department of Justice may not enforce the statute against law-abiding citizens seeking to ship or receive handguns used for lawful purposes, including self-defense, target shooting, and hunting. The opinion directs the Postal Service to modify its regulations accordingly to align with the Constitution. And it recommends that the statute not be criminally enforced. 

This is a major victory for Second Amendment rights. The opinion applied a historical analysis under the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, and especially New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, finding no relevant historical tradition justifying a ban on shipping protected arms. OLC also concluded that the statute was designed to serve an illegitimate purpose: suppressing traffic in constitutionally protected firearms. 

Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, issued the following statement:

“This opinion is a direct rebuke to decades of federal overreach that has unlawfully restricted Americans’ ability to acquire, maintain, and transport their firearms. For too long, law-abiding gun owners have been forced to navigate expensive, burdensome workarounds involving federal firearms licensees, just to ship a handgun—even for perfectly lawful purposes. The DOJ now recognizes what we’ve always known: the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, and that includes the rights to acquire and transport them.” 

John Velleco, Executive Vice President of Gun Owners Foundation, issued the following statement: 

“When the government enforces a prohibition on guns and gun owners with no historical foundation and no constitutional support—like the USPS ban on mailing handguns at issue in our case—it is acting outside the law. This historic move by the Department of Justice acknowledges that the Second Amendment protects the real, practical exercise of a fundamental right to acquire and transport a firearm. Neither Congress nor federal agencies are allowed to rewrite the Constitution to suit their anti-Second Amendment preferences.”

GOA spokesmen are available for interviews. Gun Owners of America is a nonprofit grassroots lobbying organization dedicated to protecting the right to keep and bear arms without compromise. GOA represents over two million members and activists. For more information, visit GOA’s Press Center.

-GOA- 

Today, after 11 years of litigation, Chief Counsel Joshua Prince of the Firearms Industry Consulting Group (“FICG), a division of Civil Rights Defense Firm, P.C., secured a major victory against the City of Harrisburg’s last remaining, illegal firearm ordinance in Firearm Owners Against Crime – Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action (FOAC-ILLEA), et al. v. City of Harrisburg, et … Continue reading Monumental Victory For Gun Owners – Harrisburg’s Final Gun Ordinance Falls… →

The Maverick Who Revolutionized Gun Rights In America

The Legacy of H.L. “Bill” Richardson

Innovative Maverick. Defender of Freedom.

Effective, provocative, colorful, and imaginative – these words perfectly describe Senator H.L. Richardson, the founder of Gun Owners of California and Gun Owners of America.

Long before the anti-gun movement was on anyone’s radar, California State Senator H.L. “Bill” Richardson became concerned with the national inroads the radical left were making in politics, most specifically their consistent attempts to disarm Americans. In 1975, in Richardson’s home state, legislation was introduced to ban all handguns, which generated a swell of support from elected officials and the mainstream media.

This, however, did not sit well with Richardson, who decided to mobilize thousands of enraged citizens to fight the ban, and Gun Owners of California was born, America’s first pro-gun political action committee. A direct mail attack was unleashed from one end of the state to the other, and the handgun-ban bill was summarily defeated. This success and Richardson’s keen skill for activating single individuals toward a common goal spurred him to take it national – and Gun Owners of America came into being.

During his 22 years in the California Senate, Richardson showed that a determined application of confrontational politics could produce big victories. While in office, in addition to GOC and GOA, Richardson organized multiple Political Action Committees (PACs) that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the political left. Richardson also took this sharp political insight and wrote a virtual “game plan” for political wins with his controversial book, Confrontational Politics. He clearly explained his core belief that politics should be a struggle of competing ideologies, not a game of compromise and accommodation. Thus, GOC/GOA’s “no compromise” motto.

Following his retirement from the Legislature in 1988, he primarily devoted his time to GOC and GOA. Respected veteran reporter Dan Walters covered the Capitol for decades and remembered Richardson after his passing in 2020 by penning “The Man Who Changed the Capitol.” He wrote how Richardson “single-handedly changed the nature of the Capitol, pioneered political techniques that continue to be used, and altered the course of California history… few political figures past or present could claim to have had such impact.”

GOA is proud to celebrate the extraordinary legacy of our founder, Senator H. L. “Bill” Richardson.

This article was originally published in the GOALS 2024 Magazine.