This is exactly why the Second Amendment matters, especially for Jews.
A synagogue should not have to ask government for permission to protect its congregation. The people responsible for protecting Jewish lives should not be forced to choose between obeying a gun-free-zone law and being prepared to defend those lives when seconds matter.
The history of Jewish disarmament should have taught us this lesson permanently: we cannot outsource our survival to government.
This ruling is an important recognition that the right to defend ourselves does not disappear when we walk through the doors of a synagogue. Jews have the right to be armed. Jews have the right to defend themselves. And Jews should never be forced to remain defenseless.
Nothing Says NEVER AGAIN Like an Armed Jew.
A federal judge sided with a Maryland rabbi and synagogue, arguing that a state law prevented them from having firearms for security and religious reasons.
US District Judge Deborah Chasanow issued a temporary injunction against Montgomery County enforcing a state gun control measure against Silver Spring Jewish Center (SSJC) and Rabbi J. Menahse Shapiro. She ruled the plaintiffs met the bar for protection. However, she declined to block enforcement against anyone but them.
“SSJC and Rabbi Shapiro, at this preliminary stage, have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits as to their as-applied Second Amendment claim of the Code’s firearm restrictions as to places of worship,” Judge Chasanow wrote in SSJC v. Montgomery County.
The ruling is another setback for Montgomery County leaders, who’ve been repeatedly rebuked by state and federal judges as they’ve pushed the limits of what gun restrictions are allowed under the Second Amendment. It may also cast a shadow over the country’s other ongoing gun suits, including one where the Department of Justice is challenging its other expansive “gun-free zone” mandates.
By Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech
