DOJ Won’t Appeal Judge’s Order on Concealed Carry Ban in Post Offices

The move was announced in a letter from the Justice Department to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

A selection of pistols at a gun shop in Kittery, Maine, on Aug. 9, 2025. Charles Krupa/AP Photo

The Department of Justice (DOJ) last week said it will dismiss its appeal in a case challenging the federal ban on the concealed carry of a firearm in U.S. Postal Service offices.

In a letter issued to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Aug. 15, the DOJ stated that it dismissed its pending appeal in the case known as United States v. Ayala, which involved a U.S. Postal Service truck driver who had a concealed carry permit and carried a concealed pistol while walking into a post office.

The driver, Emmanuel Ayala, was stopped by two U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General agents, who tried to detain him. He fled the scene but was later arrested by the police department of Tampa, Florida, according to court documents.

Ayala was later indicted for possessing a firearm in a federal facility and for forcibly resisting arrest.

In the DOJ letter, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that Ayala “carried a handgun on the job for self-defense” and that the DOJ has now dismissed its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The department had filed its appeal after a federal judge in 2024 dismissed the federal gun charge and found that the statute that prohibits people from carrying a concealed firearm with a concealed carry permit in a post office location is in violation of the Second Amendment.

“The Department has determined that, in these circumstances, continuing to pursue the appeal is not an appropriate use of prosecutorial resources,” the letter reads.

It states that the resisting arrest charge filed against Ayala is still pending.

The federal judge’s 2024 order cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision in stating that “the government must point to historical principles that would permit” prohibiting guns in post offices.

“The facts and arguments advanced by the United States fail to carry their burden under Bruen, much less preserve potential wrinkles based on competing constitutional principles,” Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote in the order.

The letter from Sauer comes as the Trump administration has moved to relax certain gun-related restrictions. For example, the DOJ announced in March an agreement on a series of cases over an aftermarket trigger product that the government had previously argued qualifies as a machine gun under federal law.

“This Department of Justice believes that the 2nd Amendment is not a second-class right,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement at the time.

Several weeks later, in June, 16 Democrat-controlled states sued the Trump administration over the plan to allow the sale of forced-reset triggers.

And in July, the DOJ stated that it published a proposed rule to grant relief to certain people who are prohibited from possessing guns and would provide those individuals with the ability to restore their right to possess a firearm.

“Absent extraordinary circumstances, violent felons, registered sex offenders, and illegal aliens, in particular, will remain presumptively ineligible for relief,” the DOJ said in a statement on July 18.

It also suggested that people who were convicted without regard to whether they are capable of violence could see their gun rights restored.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.