A federal judge blocked Montgomery County from enforcing its new gun control measures against a Silver Spring synagogue and rabbi, but refused to issue a broader order blocking enforcement altogether.
The pair of decisions by Senior U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow came down last Thursday as another federal judge weighs the Department of Justice’s challenge to Montgomery County’s new gun prohibitions. The lawsuits are all challenging the county’s ban on sale, transfer, possession, or transport of firearms and ammunition within 100 yards of a “place of public assembly.”
The Silver Spring Jewish Center was represented by attorneys from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit public interest firm based in Arlington, Virginia. The synagogue sued alongside Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro, a Georgetown Law student who attends services there, alleging that the new law infringed on their First Amendment right to free exercise of religion as well as the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“We’re delighted that the court has protected Silver Spring Jewish Center and its members’ right to defend themselves in their place of worship,” NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel Jacob Huebert said in a statement. “It’s an important victory for them, the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment.”
Chasanow’s injunction only blocks the county from enforcing the law against the Silver Spring Jewish Center and Shapiro, who “holds the sincere religious belief that Jewish law requires him to carry a firearm for personal, family, and communal protection” and walks by around nine places of public assembly on his way to the synagogue, according to the complaint.
— Dan Belson in Judge hands early victory to Montgomery County synagogue in gun law challenge