Transcription
Major and huge breaking news. Some of the biggest news that we've ever broken. That is the United States Department of Justice, under Pam Bondi and Harmy Dylan and their team, has just announced in a memorandum that the federal, the federal gun control law, 18 USC 1715, violates the Second Amendment and should no longer be prosecuted or enforced.
This is a huge deal, folks, because of the first example, maybe in American history that I'm aware of, of the Department of Justice coming out and saying that a federal gun control law violates the Second Amendment. Big deal. Let's break it down when we come right back.
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Hey folks, I'm Mark Smith, host of the Four Boxes of Freedom. Proud American gun owner, constitutional attorney, member of the United States Supreme Court Bar, and I'm proud to say top five finalists in the Top Voice of the Second Amendment in America category at the 2026 Gundy's Awards. We won it in 2025. We got the candles lit to hope we can win it in 2026. Thanks to your support and your nominations, I really appreciate it. We'll be out there at Shot Show, by the way, doing a couple, uh, doing a book signing and some meet and greets. So, feel free to stop on by. It's totally free. And, uh, if you're out there, say hello, uh, in Las Vegas next week.
All right, folks. So, this is a huge deal, folks. Everyone understands what I'm about to say is a huge deal. This is not one of these Mark things like down the road. No, this is immediately a huge breaking news story. This sea change in American law is being brought to us by President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Harmy Dylan over there at the Department of Justice, and the incredible team of intellectuals at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi as well.
They have just issued a memorandum for the benefit of Pam Bondi explaining that federal, federal gun control law, 18 USC 1715, which prohibits the mailing by Americans of concealable handguns, pistols, revolvers, and the like. Handguns, basically preventing the mailing of these through the US Postal Service, that this law is unconstitutional and unenforceable under the Second Amendment because this law, enacted in the year of our Lord 1927. You heard me right, folks, that's not a typo, not misspeaking. 1927 that says that pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of being concealed, basically handguns again, cannot be mailed through the post office.
Well, the post office is a federal agency. It's part of the federal government. And this, based on this conclusion by the intellectuals at the Department of Justice, that's what the Office of Legal Counsel does. They're the super intellectual geeks, and I mean that in a nice way, at the Department of Justice that figure out all these difficult legal questions and advise the president of the United States and the Attorney General of what their position should be in, for example, court cases and the like. And the Office of Legal Counsel has just issued this powerful memorandum of many pages explaining in detail that this is the, that this federal gun control law is totally inconsistent with the Second Amendment and inconsistent with the Supreme Court precedent.
Here is the conclusion this memorandum reaches. And then we'll break down some other great things in this document in support of our Second Amendment rights. And this is a big deal, folks. This is a sea change because this is the first time that this Department of Justice has said a federal statute is unconstitutional. Now, we've talked about this this channel before that they're laser-focused on knocking out state gun control laws because it's low-hanging fruit. The states are by far and away worse than the federal government as a general matter. They're banning guns. They do all sorts of nonsense, and they should be slapped first. But that doesn't mean that there's not problems with the federal law. And this is the first example of the DOJ under Pam Bondi and Donald Trump laser-focused saying that a federal statute is unconstitutional.
Here's what they conclude. "Section 1715 regulates the ability to transport, receive, and maintain constitutionally protected firearms, which burdens the right protected by the Second Amendment. But section 1715's purpose and burden find no analog in this nation's history and tradition of firearms regulation," citing to Bruen. See the ripple effect, folks? Brick by brick, baby. Brick by brick. "We therefore conclude that the statute violates the Second Amendment in so far as it burdens the rights of law-abiding citizens to ship and receive arms in common use for lawful purposes. Accordingly, the executive branch under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi, by the way. Accordingly, the executive branch may not, consistent with the Constitution, enforce section 1715 with respect to constitutionally protected firearms, and the postal service should modify its regulations to conform with the scope of the Second Amendment as described in this opinion."
It's fantastic. It's fantastic. It is another brick in the wall. Remember, I've trained you brick by brick by brick. We build the wall around the Second Amendment. You cannot just wave a magic wand and get to gay marriage, for example. If you're a gay rights supporter, you have to go step by step by step to get to your ultimate outcome. In the Second Amendment community, we must take lessons from that and win battle by battle by battle and brick by brick by brick, all in the states, and the federal law. And this is the next brick.
Now, what's interesting is this 1927 law that says you cannot mail guns speaks to many, touches on, touches fingers with several aspects of the Second Amendment. And the Department of Justice in this memo does a great job of pointing all that out. But before I get to the great other stuff that this memo does, I just want to point out a critical section of this memo that discusses in detail why getting rid of or not enforcing section 1715 actually effectuates the right to self-defense. Here's what they explain. It's very powerful stuff here. Check it out.
"Section 1715 substantially burdens the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. An individual cannot mail himself a handgun for core constitutionally protected activity such as self-defense, target shooting, or hunting. As the examples below illustrate, traveling with a firearm can be difficult, if not impossible, rendering the mail the most effective way to transport an individual's firearm to his destination."
And then this memo gives some examples. One, a Californian vacationing in Vermont flies into New York. The transportation of his handgun through the New York airport, even if that handgun is properly stowed in his luggage, would trigger an arrest for violating New York's law against possession of an unlicensed handgun. Cited to cases. Two, a person driving from Wisconsin to Michigan stops in Chicago for two days. The break in travel would cause him to lose the protection of 18 USC 926A, part of the Firearms Owners Protection Act, of course, which otherwise protects the interstate transportation of firearms. Three, a person takes a bus from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The bus would generally refuse to accept his firearm as luggage. In these cases and many others like them, a person has no ability to travel to travel with a firearm, leaving shipment of a handgun to a destination as the only viable method of transportation of the firearm."
Exactly right. Exactly right. If you have to fly through New York City with a gun or, you know, do any of that stuff to touch fingers with the New England states, let's say. Yeah. Odds are you're going to get arrested in New York for violating New York City's gun control law or New York's gun control law. Now, it's BS. You may win the case, but you're going to have, you're going to, you know, it's going to mess up your trip. You're going to go to prison for a day and deal with all that nonsense. So, people don't do it. So, next thing you know, they're in Northern New England, uh, Connecticut, wherever it is. And, uh, guess what? No gun because they can't get through New York because New York is a major airport, major hub, obviously.
Now, with that said, this memo also has some other extremely powerful language that you're going to understand because you geek out here, quoting William Kirk, my friend over there at Washington Gun Law, on this sort of thing. But this is important. Remember, the right to keep and bear arms is the right to possess and the right to carry guns. But they're implied or necessary or by necessary implication other rights. You sometimes refer to those as ancillary rights. Maybe they're referred to as concomitant rights. I've talked about this before. I've tried to teach you this before. I think you're all very familiar with this. And this memo touches fingers with a lot of them and identifies them as exactly what they should be, which is fundamental constitutional rights, fundamental Second Amendment rights, which don't just include the right to have a gun and the right to possess a gun, the right to carry a gun. Because there's a lot of things that lead up to that, including, for example, the right to acquire a gun, right? The right to train with a gun, the right to maintain the gun, to make sure it's working, all of those things.
Check out some of the things from this memo. I think you're going to like it. "Section 1715 forbids mailing the handgun. The postal service's ban on mailing handguns thus stifles the legitimate transportation and carriage of handguns for self-defense or any other lawful purpose. Similarly, section 1715 imposes gratuitous burdens on the right to acquire and maintain." Hear what I just said. Acquire and maintain firearms. "Constitutional rights implicitly protect those closely related acts necessary to the exercise." Cited to Lewis v. United States, common by Justice Thomas. "Here the Second Amendment prohibits the government from infringing upon a law-abiding citizen's right to keep and bear arms in common use for lawful purposes. This provision, however, would be meaningless." Listen carefully. "Would be meaningless if the government could prevent citizens from ever receiving such arms." Bing, bing, bing. Exactly right, folks. You have a right to acquire guns. Even though the word acquire is not in the text, the right to acquire guns is part of the plain text. Exactly. Right here.
Then he goes on to say, "Indeed, the receipt of a weapon is almost always a necessary predicate to both keeping and bearing a weapon." Of course, you got to receive the weapon to use it, to keep it, to bear it. "Yet, section 1715 precludes an ordinary person from ever receiving a firearm directly in the mail, even if the seller or donor lives in the same state as the recipient."
And that's not all that it says is very helpful. It goes on to point out that there's other implied rights that are inherently essential to the right to keep and bear arms at the textual level. Here's what they have to say next. "It has widely been understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. These uses include, for example, meaning uses of guns, target shooting, firearm training, and hunting." Cited to a case. It says, "explain that the right to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping it. It implies," listen carefully, "the learning to handle and use them. In other words, it implies the right to meet to meet for voluntary discipline and arms. It also includes the right to carry arms publicly for individual or ready community defense."
And then it goes on in this memo to say that the ultimate, talking about the ultimate recipient will retrieve the weapon, and that the Second Amendment likewise protects the right to maintain firearms in a working condition. Yet an ordinary person who seeks repairs cannot simply mail the firearm to a gunsmith or the manufacturer. The owner must instead deliver the weapon to an FFL dealer who will send the firearm on the owner's behalf.
That's a big deal, folks, because the DOJ in this memo is pointing out that the Second Amendment's plain text includes other rights beyond the right to just possess the gun and the right to carry the gun in public for self-defense. It also includes the right to engage in target shooting, firearm training, and hunting. It also gives you the right, uh, to learn how to handle the gun, to use the gun. It also implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline and arms. They, they cite to a case on that. Uh, and also the right to carry arms publicly for individual defense and for community defense, for the defense of your community. And it goes on to say, of course, you have the right to maintain your guns to make sure they're in a good working condition.
This is all fantastic, folks, because this is expanding the understanding. Frankly, it's not really expanding the understanding. It's reaffirming and restoring the original understanding of the Second Amendment to a place where it never should have left. So again, this is fantastic news, folks, that the DOJ under Pam Bondi and Donald Trump and Harmy Dylan and the other excellent lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel have put this memo out, and we'll see how it gets used down the road. I think it'll be used in a big way to fight for our right to keep and bear arms. And again, as I've been explaining, DOJ has been laser-focused on knocking out state gun control laws, which we should applaud them all the time for. That's a great, great big deal. But now they're starting to turn their attention to some federal laws. And this is a great start because I think Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh would buy into this and would agree with the analysis here that this law is unconstitutional.
Okay, there you have it, folks. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure you follow me at @x4boxiron. Don't forget to subscribe both the YouTube and Rumble. I'll talk to you again real soon here at the fourboxes.com.
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