Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is trying to eliminate the ban on guns in U.S. Post Offices. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Illegal Guns for Mayors Against Action (or something like that) opposes the move. “Prior to the current ban on guns inside federal buildings, mass shootings at U.S. Post Offices were so frequent that the phrase ‘going postal’ became a popular way to describe workplace violence in America.” Which implies that ‘going postal’ has gone out of fashion because the gun ban was/is so effective. Yes, well, in 1972, the Postal Service enacted 39 C.F.R. § 232.1(l) (“USPS Regulation”). That reg stipulates that . . .

Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, rule or regulation, 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.

So how many post office shootings pre-date the ban and, indeed, the turn-of-phrase? For that info we turn to the hive mind at Wikipedia:

The expression derives from a series of incidents from 1983 onward in which United States Postal Service (USPS) workers shot and killed managers, fellow workers, and members of the police or general public in acts of mass murder. Between 1986 and 1997, more than 40 people were gunned down by spree killers in at least 20 incidents of workplace rage.

Of the 21 entries in Wikipedia’s List of postal killings all of them occurred after the law went into effect. More to the point – well, my point – all of the incidents involved armed killers murdering unarmed victims. What’s more, “researchers have found that the homicide rates at postal facilities were lower than at other workplaces.”

So much for that then. Except of course, for Shannon’s shrieking. Here’s her full press release on the subject of gun ban reform in U.S. post offices: