An appeals court has vetoed an attempt in the state of New York to demand that all churches go gun-free on their campuses.
The ruling from the 2nd U.S., Circuit Court of Appeals said “that houses of worship have a constitutionally protected freedom to decide for themselves whether to allow otherwise legally possessed firearms into their facilities,” said Erin Murphy, a lawyer at Clement & Murphy.
The report comes from First Liberty Institute which worked on the dispute.
The organization explained that the ruling “rejected the state of New York’s unconstitutional attempt to make His Tabernacle Family Church (‘His Tabernacle’)—and all houses of worship in New York—gun-free zones.”
That church was one of several groups and people in multiple court battles fighting the state. It is a nondenominational church in Horseheads, N.Y., founded by Pastor Michael Spencer.
The court affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking the law in December which the state of New York appealed in January of 2023.
Jeremy Dys, of First Liberty Institute, said, “The court made it clear that the U.S. Constitution grants the right of self-defense for all Americans and houses of worship cannot be disarmed. No American should be forced to sacrifice one constitutionally protected freedom to enjoy another.”
Spencer noted, “We are grateful that the court protected our First Amendment freedoms to make decisions about the safety of our congregation.”
The court decision pointed out it was “hard to see how the law advances the interests of religious organizations, as a whole, by denying them agency to choose for themselves whether to permit firearms.”
The state had claimed the authority to prohibit the possession of firearms on those private properties, controlled by houses of worship, or in other “sensitive” areas.
The ruling explained it was the church, several individuals and a couple of advocacy groups that contested the state’s “Concealed Carry Improvement Act.”
It cited the Supreme Court’s Heller, McDonald and New York Rifle precedents.
The state, after the New York Rifle decision which struck the government’s demand for “proper cause” for a gun permit, the state adopted the CCIA. That scheme made it illegal to carry in “sensitive locations” even if individuals held concealed-carry permits.
In that action, the state specified a lengthy list of those “sensitive” locations to include all government locations, all schools, anything used as a polling place, any “health” organization, any location serving alcohol, any “performance” locations like a theater, private property and more.
The various organization challenged it as unconstitutional. The lower courts had ruled for the church on Free Exercise, Establishment and Second Amendment grounds.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO WND READERS: Shortly after Hamas terrorists fired over 5,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 and then proceeded to attack the Jewish state by land, sea and air – torturing, burning, beheading and murdering well over a thousand people, including women, children and infants, and wounding and abducting hundreds more – world reaction was, in its own way, almost equally shocking.
For after the biggest one-day mass slaughter of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust, what followed was an outpouring of celebratory demonstrations, unbridled Jew-hatred, deliriously gleeful support for Hamas and bitter condemnation of the nation of Israel. Not just in the Arab-Muslim world, but throughout the Western world as well, including all across America.
Why? What is behind the explosion of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-terror sentiment in the United States, where Israel has long been one of America’s closest friends and allies? Why are hordes of young “woke” LGBT demonstrators marching in support of Hamas – when Hamas wouldn’t think twice about binding and blindfolding them and throwing them off the roof of a tall building – as they routinely do in the Muslim world?
It turns out there’s one area of agreement that is so powerful, deep-seated and all-consuming that the vast differences between the deranged left and the murderous jihadists melt away into Kumbaya harmony.
All of this and much more is completely exposed in November’s issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled ISRAEL VS. GLOBAL JIHAD: How Jew-hatred, radical Islam and Leftism are pushing us toward World War III. Beyond a deeply insightful dive into why leftists are surging toward radical Islam – which hates and dreams of raping and butchering them – this Whistleblower issue includes fantastic articles by everyone from top Israeli analyst (and former Israel Defense Forces officer) Caroline Glick to Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Pastor Greg Laurie on the current war in Israel and biblical prophecies regarding the End Times … which he says are now upon us.
WHISTLEBLOWER is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.
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