Post office and knives

[Krull]

Odd one:My post master warned me not to use my knife in the P.O. because they're not allowed,said random inspectors can wander in and give me hell and law trouble over it...

I thought 2 1/2 was ok but now?

 

[Walking Man]

Sound ridiculous to me. Maybe it's your state.

 

[Krull]

Aren't P.O.'s Fed? that means one rule nation-wide...right?

 

[mp510]

I recieve knives via US Mail all the time. I also shipped one out yesterday US Mail for repair, and the clerk didn't tell me about any problems with mailing it since it was not a switchblade and it was packed to the blade couldn't penetrate the package. In every post office that I have ever been in, they do have signs prohibiting the carrying of guns and 'weapons' by people other than LEO's on official business. This is the poster:

Robert P. Firriolo, Esq has written an interesting piece on that topic, here is the link: http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/rtc-usps.html

 

[Walking Man]

Aren't P.O.'s Fed? that means one rule nation-wide...right?

I think "weapons" can be defined by the states, so if federal rules determine whatever is written above (see where it says b above), then I think you'd have to follow both.
Still seem REALLY stupid to me though. Not being allowed to carry a knife to a place you pick up packages. Just brilliant!

 

[Ogie]

In every post office that I have ever been in, they do have signs prohibiting the carrying of guns and 'weapons' by people other than LEO's on official business.

Where do you get the impression that LEOs are exempt from not carrying in the Post Office? What kind of official business? Stopping to pick up a book of stamps on your way home from work doesn't qualify as official business.

 

[mp510]

From 39 CFR 232.1:

No person while on postal property may
carry firearms, other dangerous or deadly weapons, or explosives, either
openly or concealed, or store the same on postal property, except for
official purposes.

From 18 USC 930

(d) Subsection (a) shall not apply to—
(1) the lawful performance of official duties by an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, who is authorized by law to engage in or supervise the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution of any violation of law;

Both these codes make clear that the LEO exemption is for official purposes- not stopping in for their personal shiping needs. For example, an officer might be there to pick up or drop off Department mail or may be there to aid in an investegation of some sort. LEO's are clearly described in the part I indicated in blue in 18 USC 930, and I indicated 'official business' with red text as I did in 39 CFR 232.1.

Yes, I believe that there are other exemptions as well, however I am not going to get into those here, since I would prefer to avoid sticky situations. Remember I am not a postal employee, or other government official. I am only a lay person.Note that I was VERY CLEAR about official business being a requirement for the LEO exemption.

 

[warrior24]

that would be like banning shopping carts at stores.

 

[Ogie]

From 39 CFR 232.1:


From 18 USC 930


Both these codes make clear that the LEO exemption is for official purposes- not stopping in for their personal shiping needs. For example, an officer might be there to pick up or drop off Department mail or may be there to aid in an investegation of some sort. LEO's are clearly described in the part I indicated in blue in 18 USC 930, and I indicated 'official business' with red text as I did in 39 CFR 232.1.

Yes, I believe that there are other exemptions as well, however I am not going to get into those here, since I would prefer to avoid sticky situations. Remember I am not a postal employee, or other government official. I am only a lay person.Note that I was VERY CLEAR about official business being a requirement for the LEO exemption.

You were VERY CLEAR about official business being a requirement for the LEO exemption, however it was not VERY CLEAR as to what constituted official business. Being on the clock while working for your department does not automatically give you the right to walk into the Post Office with a gun. You have clarified this to some extent. Although I don't believe that picking up the department's mail at the Post Office is official business either.

If the "other lawful purposes" language applies to CCW holders it of course would also apply to LEOs. I believe it does but I wouldn't want to bet the farm on it either.

 

[Chris Meyer]

Fortunately, the rabid anti-Police crowd doesn't usually get to decide what activities are to be considered "official business".

 

[FullerH]

If, as that notice says, they are relying upon 18 USC 930 for their restriction on knives in Post Offices, then they need to include the definitions included in paragraph (g) thereunder.

(g) As used in this section:
(1) The term "Federal facility" means a building or part
thereof owned or leased by the Federal Government, where Federal
employees are regularly present for the purpose of performing
their official duties.
(2) The term "dangerous weapon" means a weapon, device,
instrument, material, or substance, animate or inanimate, that is
used for, or is readily capable of, causing death or serious
bodily injury, except that such term does not include a pocket
knife with a blade of less than 2 1/2 inches in length.*
(3) The term "Federal court facility" means the courtroom,
judges' chambers, witness rooms, jury deliberation rooms,
attorney conference rooms, prisoner holding cells, offices of the
court clerks, the United States attorney, and the United States
marshal, probation and parole offices, and adjoining corridors of
any court of the United States.

Note that the definition of "dangerous weapon", such as are banned from any federal office or building, specifically excludes a "pocket knife with a blade of less than 2 1/2 inches in length." I cannot speak for why they have chosen not to include that in their warning, but I would print a copy of the entire section out and present it to the postmaster, with the appropriate language underlined.

* Bolding mine, for emphasis

 

[DaemonLee]

Wow. Federal law is tighter concerning knives and buildings then State is. Plus, 2 1/2? Wow.

 

[FullerH]

DaemonLee, this restriction is hardly new. It's been that way for many, many years.

 

[Ogie]

Fortunately, the rabid anti-Police crowd doesn't usually get to decide what activities are to be considered "official business".

Then who does? The rabid "the police can do no wrong crowd"?

 

[Esav Benyamin]

I spent a career in postal management, including many years as a station manager (postmaster). On the workfloor, knives are a necessity, and in New York City, small fixed blades were even provided by the service. Obviously, as a knife knut myself, I was disinclined to quibble over workers or customers carrying or using reasonable blades for normal cutting.

Krull, your postmaster is an idiot, who is overinterpreting a statute that was meant to restrict carry of weapons, which your knife is not.

By the way, we had a police station one block from my post office, and the officers stopped by on their own time, and on a few interesting occasions, on official business (bomb threats!). What kind of a jerk would I have been to quibble over any equipment they were carrying?

---

Well, one day an FBI agent came in and asked if there were a spot he could watch the building across the street without being obvious about it. I found him a place by a small window in our inquiry area.

A few minutes later, a couple of clerks came to me, very upset. It seems he was standing by the window with a pistol ready to fire ... the window had a metal mesh over it.

I threw him out.

 

[Ogie]

I spent a career in postal management, including many years as a station manager (postmaster). On the workfloor, knives are a necessity, and in New York City, small fixed blades were even provided by the service. Obviously, as a knife knut myself, I was disinclined to quibble over workers or customers carrying or using reasonable blades for normal cutting.

Krull, your postmaster is an idiot, who is overinterpreting a statute that was meant to restrict carry of weapons, which your knife is not.

By the way, we had a police station one block from my post office, and the officers stopped by on their own time, and on a few interesting occasions, on official business (bomb threats!). What kind of a jerk would I have been to quibble over any equipment they were carrying?

---

Well, one day an FBI agent came in and asked if there were a spot he could watch the building across the street without being obvious about it. I found him a place by a small window in our inquiry area.

A few minutes later, a couple of clerks came to me, very upset. It seems he was standing by the window with a pistol ready to fire ... the window had a metal mesh over it.

I threw him out.

I too spent a career in postal management. Most of my years were spent as a Postmaster in a medium sized Post Office in the Midwest. Were you both a Station Manager and at some other time a Postmaster?

You are right about the knives. They had approximately three inch blades. They were never very sharp but were only used to cut string. As time went on there was less and less string to cut.

I had police officers coming in every day for various reasons, mostly for personal reasons. I never once gave any of them a hard time because they came in wearing a gun. In fact, I never mentioned it. My point in a previous post was that a law abiding citizen that has a CCW permit should be given the same courtesy and that just because someone was a LEO it did not necessarily exclude them from the weapons restriction, if in fact the restriction itself is valid.

It is somewhat amusing that the statute provides for no more than a 2.5 inch blade out in the lobby but that three inch blades were used by employees on the workroom floor.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Ogie, I wouldn't pat down my customers to see who was carrying. I think regulations like that are like finicky knife laws -- they give law enforcement an excuse to add a charge after someone has drawn attention to themselves already.

I don't like the legal reasoning myself. If something is wrong in itself, describe that wrong behavior in a law. But criminalizing possession is painting with too broad a brush.

Of course, a police officer in uniform off duty on the way home is still obviously carrying his weapons. What should I do, send him back to the station to disarm? Sometimes the rules contradict good sense. That's why they give us a postal manual -- but the manual doesn't make decisions.

---

In New York City, "Postmaster" is the title of the highest postal official, and "station manager" is the title of the person in charge of a local delivery unit. Station managers aren't exactly the same as postmasters outside the city because we didn't have any authority over contracting or maintenance or hiring. That was all centralized.

But it's a distinction without a difference to the customers who walk in and ask to speak to the postmaster.

 

[Rat Finkenstein]

First time I saw that poster, I was standing in line at the post office, and I was carrying a concealed pistol (with a permit)


So, naturally I pulled it out and shouted "everyone be calm, this will only take a second" and ran outside to put the offending object in my car. . .

well, not really. I have not carried in there since, except for knives.

seems like a pretty stupid law to me, as if anyone intending to commit crimes with weapons is going to care about a poster telling him it is a no-no.:jerkit:

 

[Ogie]

Esav Benyamin:

You are correct about the manual, it was a guide.

I meant no disrespect when I asked about your Station Manager/Postmaster situation. I thought perhaps you had also been a Postmaster somewhere in New York state. At one time I was a Station Manager in a big city office. It was a harder job than Postmaster of a medium size office.

Let common sense prevail. That's not the same as 18 and 8, is it?

 

[Esav Benyamin]

My post office was Planetarium Station, on the upper West Side of Manhattan, by the American Museum of Natural History. Nice neighborhood, but by the same token, we could catch heat from a very connected community.

When I took over, we had about 200 employees, half letter carriers, and we were open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Size and mail volume was almost exactly average for New York, between the smaller residential stations and the larger business stations.