NYS Jewish Gun Club Vows to Continue Fight to Protect Shuls

M.C. Millman

Last September, as reported by Rockland Daily here, the NYS Jewish Gun Club filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, requesting an emergency injunction to stop the State from designating places of worship or religious observation as sensitive places where possessing a licensed firearm is prohibited and punishable with severe criminal penalties.

The gun club argued that the prohibition makes shul goers vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks, causing people to frequent shuls less often. 

More than nine months later, Judge Vernon Broderick, an Obama appointee, finally put out a ruling. On June 28, the judge ruled that New York State did not violate the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments by banning firearms in places of worship and religious observation. The ruling supports the State's argument that it has broad power to restrict when and where licensed owners can carry guns. The ruling was passed despite New York's Western and Northern Districts previously striking down the ban and despite New York State's 2023 budget voiding the provision.

Broderick's ruling will likely be short-lived, given other, pending legal challenges of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) and its restrictions on houses of worship. In the meantime, the ruling encourages the State to reinstate the  CCIA, going back to complete limitations on firearms in houses of worship. 

Gun rights advocates have already secured at least three separate orders blocking the provision from two federal judges. Prior rulings blocking the ban were stayed by the Second Circuit and are now being heard on appeal, but the cases were enough to cause New York to abandon its total ban on carrying guns in places of worship, and instead, in May, it allowed ambiguous exceptions for "church pastors" and "persons responsible for security" to carry firearms.

Although NYS rescinded the law in the 2023 budget, Judge Broderick still defended it, holding it is constitutional. Judge Broderick's ruling allows NYS to continue to discriminate against religion whenever it wants and disarm religious people when they need to be defended the most. 

"We will not allow NYS to violate the constitution or treat us differently because of our religion," the NYS Jewish Gun Club says in a press release, "We will not be disarmed in places of worship. We will not choose between self-defense and religious observation. We will hold NYS accountable by appealing this decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."

 

To read Judge Broderick's opinion and order, click here. 

To support the NYS Jewish Gun Club's continued fight to protect our shuls click here.