Houses of worship are often targeted by people with murder on their minds. That’s especially true of synagogues, which were disproportionately attacked even before October 7 and have since been on the receiving end of the “antizionist” reframing of hatred of Jews. But in Montgomery County, Maryland, officials recently renewed efforts to forbid the carrying of firearms within 100 yards of “places of public assembly,” including churches and synagogues. Now, some security volunteers are defying the intrusive law as they await the outcome of courtroom pushback against the restrictions.
“Today, the Justice Department filed suit against Montgomery County, Maryland (County). The complaint alleges that the County’s newly enacted Bill 23-26 violates the Second Amendment by prohibiting law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms in daily life,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced on August 3. “Bill 23-26 prohibits carrying firearms at thousands of locations, and also creates an arbitrary 100-yard exclusion zone around each location. The law applies even if the person carrying a firearm is duly licensed and has the express consent of the property owner.”
Separately, on behalf of the Silver Spring Jewish Center and along with Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro, the New Civil Liberties Alliance is suing Montgomery County. That lawsuit contends the law “violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion by prohibiting synagogue members from acting according to their beliefs. It also violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by making decisions in place of religious leaders. The law denies the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and deprives the Jewish community and others of equal protection under the law by discriminating on the basis of religion, a Fourteenth Amendment violation.”
— JD Tuccille in Maryland Synagogue Challenges Restrictive Gun Law
I continue to get what I voted for. The Trump administration is the greatest defender of the second amendment, since the founders.
And this is the democrats controlled county. That won’t prosecute criminals. Like every other democrat controlled area.
If DoJ would also go after the implicated county officials, personally, for conspiracy to violate civil rights, you’d see a lot less of this.
As long as the cost of such virtue signaling is borne by the taxpayers, clearly illegal behavior like this will continue.
Wouldn’t that be nice? I think they’ve been historically concerned with “institutional stability.”
Love this idea. We need accountability for unconstitutional stupid ideas.
I assume Montgomery County would be fine with these places hiring sheriff’s deputies for security during services. I’ve seen other churches and a mosque do the same. The county would have enough available manpower to cover only a handful of places at most. They don’t care. They aren’t there to provide solutions, only ideology and self-interest.
I am on my church security team. The landowner (church) recognizes my position and grants permission and privileges. In particular, I/we can call 911 and trespass (bounce) anyone at our discretion by permission of the landowner. Trusted position.
When on private property, does The State have jurisdiction in this matter? Law varies state-to-state. Check the law. I Am Not A Lawyer.
Actions Have Consequences. The Oct 7th surprise attack has exposed Europe as a tits on a boar hog alliance. Wars and more wars the common denominator fought consequent to European imperialism history of “Two State Final Solutions” for both Israel & India.
A brief history of Imperialism’s famous “Two-State Solution” dictate. The cases of Norway and Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Malaysia and Singapore are instructive. In 1905, Norway thrust into union with Sweden following the Napoleonic era turned to the ballot to bolt from the Swedish federation. Post WWI, partition of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Czechs and Slovaks union, fractured as the Communist Block collapsed. Singapore’s breakup with Malaysia – after independence from the British jackboot Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak in 1963 … racial tensions exploded into ethnic riots. Two years into the union Malaysia’s parliament annulled that political union of convenience – akin to Nasser’s alliance with Syria and Jordan.
Notice how emphatically the British barbarians reject the break-up of Great Britain and Spain rejects the Independence of Catalonian and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Contrast how hard the P-5 SC roared their support and applause for the Oslo Two State Solution; the 1993 White House ceremony where PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin validated a two-State solution; punctuated by a dozen Palestinian terrorist attacks on the streets of Israel, the assassination of Rabin, and the twenty-nine Palestinians in Hebron! Talks between Ehud Olmert and Mohammed Abbas exposed the sham propaganda of the Oslo Pie in the Sky two state solution. Mohammed Abbas behaved as if Nakba Allah dhimmi Arabs won the Six Day War!
Britain’s tactics of divide and conquer, partition of India created huge instability, the East and West Pakistan; East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh after the 1971 war. This dominate the balance of power British imperialism sparked dramatic sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing as millions of fearful Muslims and Hindus sought safe haven in the new kindred nations. Despite the lingering dispute over Kashmir that spawned multiple wars over decades, the direct consequences of that divide and conquer partition policy.
Until the current Hamas-like surprise attack at Pearl Harbor – Oct 7th 2023 massacre – Israel’s IDF victories highly restricted due to UN and Great Power politics. For example Russia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, France in Algeria and Vietnam; the latter loser replaced by US who likewise suffered defeat. Sri Lankan Civil War: UN estimated 80,000–100,000 people were killed. The Nigerian Civil War (Biafra War) (1967–1970): estimates range from about 500,000 to 3 million deaths, many caused by starvation and disease during the war. Yet none received the condemnations declared repeatedly over and again by the UN bureaucraps upon Israel.
Brutal warfare conducted through extensive wars, such as the Ukraine invasion by Russia, have slaughtered vast multitudes of civilian populations. Each unleashed crushing military campaigns to bring Chechen, Tamil, Biafran and Confederate rebels into the fold. Yet the Hamas/UNWRA surprise attack on the closing day of Sukkot — Israel condemned as guilty of war crimes and genocide?!
A Nakba Day – currently being observed in many places, fueled by the media, including public broadcasters, who promote “one hand clapping” propaganda rhetoric aimed at giving the public a “hard-on” wherein they think with their penis rather than their brains. Words such as “expulsion” and “ethnic cleansing” – accusation of genocide—a claim refuted but cannot be driven from people’s minds. Akin to the slander “the Jews poisoned the wells” denounced by the Pope of those Dark Ages – as false! Hardly anyone mentions that Nakba Day has existed only since 2004, more than 50 years after the war, that followed immediately after the founding of the state of Israel — first introduced by Yasser Arafat. Arabic-speaking observers such as my eldest daughter, saw through his propaganda immediately. None the less Nakba Day awarded Arafat an effective tool for undermining the legitimacy of the state of Israel.
Hardly anyone mentions that the ’48 Nakba Allah defeat-catastrophe, not only accompanied by an attack on the newly founded Jewish state from all sides, because the UN partition plan all Arab countries violently and vocally rejected, but that the Arab embracing Hiter’s extermination dream also affected at least as many Jews, if not more, in the surrounding Arab states. Dhimmi Jews murdered, dispossessed, expelled, or forced to flee to save their lives. Jewish families may also have among their possessions, the odd key to a house from long ago, wrapped in nostalgic memories.
The difference: Israel integrated the refugees—nearly a million of them—despite the harsh conditions at the time. Under Jordan and Egypt, which occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza for years, Arab refugees had no chance to improve their lot. On the contrary, everything was done to keep their status unchanged; they were exploited as a means of keeping hatred of Israel alive and making it grow, as was their number. Jewish synagogues in E. Jerusalem destroyed. Jordan used Jewish tombstone as building materials.
The ’48 War of Independence an international invasion lead by the Jordanian British trained Army. Like as in all war, terrible things happened. Many Arabs left their homes because Arab leaders had urged them to do so. Their own Sheiks told that once the problem of Israel exterminated, they could return. It would take only days or weeks. Arabs who listened and believed their own leaders made a great mistake to listen, because Israel won the war – it had neither started nor sought.
Ignorant brainwashed youth condemn Israel with fervor that the evil white colonialists drove the Arabs from their homes and stole their land. They “believe” – akin to a religious mantra – that “Palestine” has always existed as a country. They have no idea of the actual historical facts: that the entire region called Palestine and inhabited by Xtians, Muslims, and Jews, under the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Ottoman Muslims, and the British empire. Not to mention that archaeological finds and place names suggest that the area clearly predominantly inhabited by Jews even earlier which the Koran acknowledges.
In some circles, Israel is openly denied the right to exist. The Sky is Falling Green Party now openly embraces the UN 3379 canard: Zionism is Racism! This Oct 7th Gaza war has become the Jewish state’s absolute rejection of Europe’s repeated suppression of its historical attempts to dominate the balance of power in the Middle East and North Africa – a duplication of church and mosque revisionist history which insists that JeZeus and Nakba Allah dead Gods the ONE God of Sinai. Both religions reject the Torah mandate of Sanhedrin common law courts who impose courtroom legislative review over the statute laws passed by the 12 Tribal Yichus States; as the fundamental requirement of Yovel liberty within the borders of the lands sworn to Avraham Yitzak and Yaacov as the inheritance of their chosen Cohen people; the Torah k’vanna known as the mitzva of Moshiach.
The EU’s continued reliance on the two-state formula – looks less like a great power’s strategy than a policy sustained despite its diminishing influence. Hostile EU imperialism propaganda interprets Jewish sovereignty as expansionism while giving insufficient weight to Jewish self-determination, Arab rejectionism, Israel’s security concerns, and examples of Israeli territorial compromise, first initiated by PM Begins Camp David Accords with President Sadat’s Egypt.
The EU’s struggle to act as a consequential geopolitical power in the Middle East and North Africa constrained by the horrid barbaric and utterly vile reputation European nation states have post Shoah. The EU simply not a super-power – period. Despite Britain and France part of the UN P-5, post the 1956 War no further proof required that neither nation compares to the great European empires which dominated the balance of power across all regions of the World before two successive European Civil Wars permanently destroyed the great power status of both collapsed empires; no different than the post Shoah dead JeZeus God and the Nakba Allah dead God. The good name reputations of both Britain & France permanently cast upon the dung heaps of history like the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian dead empires.
Europeans propaganda denounces competing visions for sharing the land between Israelis and Palestinians. A crude revisionist history which ignores the basic fact that Israel won its two wars of Independence in 1948 and again in 1967. Rhetoric of egalitarian visions of morality and equal rights and coexistence revisionist history. Ignores the Arab revolt of 1936 which caused the coward Chamberlain to commit England to an Arab Palestinian state within 10 years after the coming war load of utter and complete rubbish. Its rhetoric egalitarian nonsense narishkeit blindly appeals to denial of forced population transfers of some 900,000 dhimmi Jewish 2nd class populations from Arab countries. That post the Nakba Allah defeat of Hamas Gaza Israel intends to make a forced population transfer of 100% all Gazans expelled to Syria and Iraq. Gazans elected Hamas in the 2006 general election and therefore they rejected the Oslo Accords. Hamas received more popular support than did Hitler’s Party in the election of 1933 Federal elections.
The post Yom Kippur War witnessed the victory of Begin as the PM of Israel in 1977. Begin returned the Sinai to Egypt to achieve a historic peace treaty with Sadat’s Egypt. Attempts by European imperialism which rejects, since the ’39 White Paper Jewish equal rights to achieve self determination in the Middle East; all Arab Israeli wars – including the Oct 7th 2023 Gaza war – fought over Arab rejection that dhimmi Jews have equal rights to achieve self determination within the borders of post ’67 Israel. Revisionist history ignores the fact that Nakba Allah Arabs lost their wars to throw the Jews into the Sea and sanctify the Nazi vision of a world cleansed of dhimmi sub-human Jews. The EU propaganda rhetoric conceals its pro Arab oil addiction.
Zionist self-determination means that Jews cast the Roman abomination of Syria-Palestine wherein the Byzantine empire expanded Palestine unto Trans-Jordan upon the dung heaps of history. Palestine a dead name and the UN or the EU can no more resurrect that dead name than JeZeus their dead God can cause believers of EU morality to once again believe that JeZeus the God of Sinai. Zionist self-determination stands upon the Torah Constitutional mandate which designates the “Yichus” of the 12 Tribal lands within the Republic and authorizes lateral common law Sanhedrin courts authorized through this Torah Constitution to conduct legislative review over any statute law imposed by Tribal heads upon all intra-Tribe Yichus members as the Yovel liberty of Justice within the oath sworn Tribal Republic. The EU denies Jewish equal rights to self determination no different than to their oil rich Arab allies.
Moshe Rabbeinu interpreted the distinction between the 1st and 2nd Sinai commandments as Life vs Death. In line with the בראשית משל of Tree of Life\Wisdom and Tree of Knowledge. Meaning לשמה first commandment vs לא לשמה g’lut 2nd commandment. Theology by definition bound to religion. Just as the US Constitution not a religious document so too the Torah.
Yes exiled Jews for 2000 + years have “converted” Torah into a religion. But now that Jews have reconquered our homelands, the perspective of exiled Jews in foreign lands as despised as Shoah survivors prior to the Eichmann trail…”why did you passively walk into the gas chambers as sheep!?” Only the 12 Tribes of Israel stood at Sinai/Horev and accept to this day the revelation of the Torah. Hence the God of Israel a tribal local God not similar to Islam’s Tawhid Universal Monotheism! Such substitute theology religious fanatism violates the 2nd Sinai commandment.
The EU’s insistence on imposing a secular “two-state solution” effectively forces the Jewish state to treat its enemies as equals rather than demanding they accept the basic Noahide condition for coexistence: recognition of the other’s right to exist. It denies the “Torah Constitution” the ability to enforce its own boundaries. 7 mitzvot Bnai Noach (((can’t be more religious than the Pope – משל) the Torah refers to two types of Goyim living in the Torah constitutional republic of 12 tribes. A) the Gere Toshav B) the Nokhri. A) Mesechta Sanhedrin addresses through the משל aggada story of the 7 mitzvot bnai Noach. B) Mesechta Baba Kama addresses through the משל of the Canaani whose ox gores pays full damages while the ox of an Israel which gores a Canaani – exempt from damages.
The Aggadic source for the 7 mitzvot NOT universal to all nations and peoples because violation of the 7 gere toshav commandments qualifies as a Capital Crime judged by Sanhedrin Courts whose jurisdiction restricted only to ארץ ישראל. The Rambam narishkeit error wherein he transforms an Aggadic gemara which learns k’vanna to Halachic ritualism, proof that his statute law halachot false across the board. Why? The Gemara a common law legalism which brings halachic precedents to interpret a specific Mishna Primary Source viewed from a fixed perspective akin to witness testimony of the New Moon judged! The Rambam statute law code shattered the Gemara’s משנה תורה reinterpretation of the language of a specific Mishna b/c he failed to link the halachic ruling to the specific Mishna as does the Rif Rosh common law codifications of the Talmud.