Devonai remarked,
I do recall that the Post Office only lists subsections A & B of 18 USC 930 on their signage, prompting me to look up the rest of it. Assuming someone does this in good faith, as I did, forwarding a prosecution based on 39 USC 401(a) seems to me to be the worst kind of "gotcha" law enforcement.
I did the same thing about ten years ago and figured I was OK carrying into the PO Box (POB) area (open to the public 24/7).
I figured, under the "all other lawful purposes" clause, permitted carry for self defense would be covered. I therefore could ignore the "abbreviated signage" Devonai mentioned. Fortunately, I generated no problems doing this, since I always conceal anyhow.
Then someone cited the additional regulations which made it look like despite the "lawful purposes" phraseology, it was in "in fact" illegal for even a permitted bearer of guns to do this. This may have been on the old packing dot org website.
Uh-oh. So I stopped carrying into the actual POB since there seemed to be some doubt as to whether it was legal or not.
This worked fine until I got crippled up and I would park in the PO handicapped spot, where I could disarm in the car, go in, and retrieve my mail. Then, somewhere, someone noted that the restriction applied as well to the parking area, it being "under the control of" the Postal Service.
Rats. OK, so I parked across the street and hobbled in on my cane and did my biz, then hobbled back. It is a peculiar situation, but the way the streets and the entrance to the PO works out, it's pretty dicey getting across that street at my usual 1 to 2 mile per hour pace.
That worked out fairly well --what the heck, I'm retired and in no rush --until winter came, with the snow-packed streets doubling the danger.
Then came the Bonidy case and I figured, well, well, my case is fairly analogous to Tab Bonidy's so I said the heck with it --"equal protection under the law," and all that, and again drove into the parking lot, parked in the handicapped space, disarmed, securing the firearm pursuant to local law as usual, and did my biz.
Then Judge Matsch's decision, specific to Bonidy's case, got overturned anyhow,
Rats.
Now it's come up again, and because of the flurry of case law and historical law citations, I'm going to figure the whole doggoned thing is constitutionally so vague
in toto that I, the aforementioned ordinary mortal, among all you other ordinary mortals, can not tell what the law is.
So there, USPS. Gotcha!
Terry