Maryland Rabbi Scores Win in Fight to Carry in Synagogue

The war over Montgomery County, Maryland’s “gun-free zones” continues, but opponents have won a key battle in their fight to exercise their Second Amendment rights. On Thursday a federal judge granted an injunction against the county’s ban on concealed carry in houses of worship, though for now his ruling applies only to the plaintiffs who sued over the prohibition. 

The injunction means Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro and other members of the Silver Spring Jewish Center can now lawfully carry on the premises of the synagogue, but U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow declined to extend the injunction to include the 100-yard “buffer zone” around the county’s other designated “sensitive places.” 

In her ruling, Chasanow wrote that Shapiro and the SSJC had brought a facial challenge to the buffer zone prohibitions, which means in order to succeed there can be no circumstance where the law might be constitutionally valid. The judge pointed to the buffer zone around schools as one example where the “no gun zone” might be upheld by the courts.

Not that it matters to her, but I disagree. While SCOTUS has suggested that bans on concealed carry in schools might be permissible, the Court has said nothing about “buffer zones.” And while the federal Gun Free School Zone Act bars firearms within 1,000 feet of a school, it also explicitly carves out an exception for individuals with concealed carry licenses issued in the state where the school zone exists. 

In my opinion, Chasanow should have looked at whether there’s any kind of historical tradition of banning lawful carry near “sensitive places.” Instead, she appears to have assumed that those “buffer zones” are really no different than the “sensitive places” themselves. 

Still, Chasanow rejected Montgomery County’s supposed historical analogues they offered in support of the ban on concealed carry in houses of worship. The county presented the court with fifteen laws, all passed between 1870 and 1901, that limited lawful carry in churches and other worship centers. Chasanow ruled that many of those laws weren’t acceptable analogues, noting some were outlier laws adopted by territorial legislatures. The judge also took issue with the fact that none of these laws were put in place around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption, but added that “even if laws enacted at (or after) the time of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) can alone supply the necessary validation, the effort fails here.”

At the time of ratification, there were thirty-seven states in the Union and eleven territories. By 1901, the time of the most recent historical analogue Defendants provide, there were forty-five states; Arizona and Oklahoma were still territories. 

The laws offered by Montgomery County came from four states and two territories, which was hardly enough to suggest a “national tradition” in Chasanow’s view. 

In that, the judge and I are in full agreement. 

In his complaint, Rabbi Shapiro noted that in order for him to walk to his synagogue, he must pass through or by multiple schools and public parks (as well as their “buffer zones”) where lawful carry is also prohibited. Given that Chasanow has kept those prohibitions in place, I don’t know how much relief Shapiro has actually obtained, but at least the volunteer security team at the Silver Spring Jewish Center can once again lawfully carry in protection of worshippers… and hopefully the rabbi can find someone willing to give him a ride while the lawsuit proceeds. 

The Department of Justice has also launched a lawsuit challenging many of the county’s “gun-free zones,” so there’s also the possibility that more of these “gun-free zones” will be put on ice and eventually struck down completely. Like I said, Thursday’s ruling is a significant victory, but the larger fight is still ongoing. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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