U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick, an Obama appointee, has ruled that an outright ban on licensed gun carry in all places of worship is compatible with the Second Amendment, rebuffing a lawsuit filed by a Jewish gun lobby against the ban.

The ruling came as a response to the lawsuit challenging New York’s law that designates all houses of worship, including shuls, as “sensitive places,” where civilian gun possession is prohibited. Judge Broderick denied a request for a preliminary injunction, supporting the state’s ability to regulate firearms in houses of worship based on the nation’s historical tradition of gun regulations.

In his written opinion on the case, Goldstein v. Hochul, Judge Broderick stated, “There is a sufficient historical record to support the finding that houses of worship are sensitive places, where it is constitutionally permissible for the state to regulate the carrying of firearms.” He pointed to both specific laws outlawing the carrying of weapons in churches and broader regulations from the founding era that limited the carrying of weapons in public, which includes places of worship.

In a statement, the New York Jewish Gun Club said: “Judge Broderick held that NYS did not violate the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments by banning firearms in places of worship and religious observation.

“This is clearly wrong to us, but also to NYS which rescinded this law in the 2023 budget. Even though NYS no longer has this law in place, Judge Broderick still defended it, holding it is constitutional. The effect of Judge Broderick’s ruling is that NYS can continue to discriminate against religion whenever it wants and disarm religious people when they need to be defended most.

“We will not allow NYS to violate the constitution or treat us differently because of our religion. We will not be disarmed in places of worship. We will not choose between self-defense and religious observation. We will hold NYS accountable by appealing this decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The ruling is seen as a setback for gun-rights advocates as it validates the state’s argument that it possesses broad power to restrict the carrying of firearms in certain locations. However, there are still ongoing legal challenges to the same ban, and previous orders have blocked the provision from two federal judges, pending appeal. As a result of these challenges, New York made adjustments to the ban, adding an exception for church pastors and “persons responsible for security” to carry guns inside places of worship.

Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Goldstein criticized the ruling and expressed plans to appeal it. “We don’t have a history of prohibiting guns in churches at the founding,” he argued to The Reload. Rabbi Goldstein, a member of the New York State Jewish Gun Club, which funded the lawsuit, believes the judge went to great lengths to find examples from the reconstruction period to define the Second Amendment right codified at the founding.

The plaintiffs, both Orthodox Jews, argued that the ban made them vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks and hindered their ability to attend religious services. They cited pre-founding colonial statutes requiring churchgoers to be armed as evidence of the historical tradition of gun carry in places of worship, but Judge Broderick disagreed. He asserted that these laws were rooted in racism and aimed at preserving slavery, suggesting they should not carry significant weight in the analysis of the regulation of firearm carry by law-abiding citizens for self-defense.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)