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
Well, “transport” is not the same as “carry” in almost all laws.
So, carry away. 😉
Jewish Rabbis Are Going To Firearms Summer Camp… And Gun Control Can’t Explain It.
(Colion) “A Jewish security group out of Los Angeles just ran what sounds like summer camp for rabbis.
But there was no canoeing.
It was five days of rifles, pistols, and stop-the-bleed training in the hills outside Los Angeles.
Twenty Chabad Hasidic rabbis from twelve states showed up to learn how to respond to threats at their synagogues and in their communities.
And the real story is not the twenty rabbis who got in.
It is the rabbis who didn’t.
Thirty-seven applied for twenty seats.
The waiting list is reportedly around forty.
And the group is already talking about running more camps next year.
That is the part gun control groups should pay attention to.
Because when the people with the most reason to be afraid stop waiting for someone else to protect them, the Second Amendment stops being a slogan and becomes a plan.
Magen Am says it plainly:
Our security is our responsibility.
That might be the most honest Second Amendment sentence I’ve heard all year.
This video breaks down the rabbi gun camp story, why demand for this training is outrunning supply, why religious communities are taking security into their own hands, and why ‘gun-free’ laws look very different when you are the one standing in the building that has to survive them.
You can pass every law you want.
You cannot legislate away a waiting list.”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYrrZTzZacc