I'd Like to Mail This Here Pistol

At approximately 2:15 p.m. on Friday, January 30, I was the second customer in line at the Pacific Beach post office on Cass Street. In front of me was a slender man in his 50s dressed in blue jeans and a baseball cap. The back of his neck was burnt from the sun, and he wore weathered brown-leather sandals. He approached the counter and I heard him whisper to the attendant that he wanted to mail the pistol he had inside his package. Silence blanketed the room as others heard him mention he had a gun. He removed a hard-plastic case from inside a cardboard mailing box...then he removed the black pistol to show the postal worker.

The attendant informed the man that one could not mail a pistol through the United States Postal Service. The man was sure the attendant was mistaken and asked to speak to the manager, who provided him with the same piece of information. With the pistol tucked under his arm, the man exited the post office and headed toward Surf 'n Post, another business offering postal services.