Thanks to a District Judge in New York, congregants in churches still have the right to “bear one another’s burdens,” and the right to “bear arms.”
On October 20, Judge John Sinatra did it “his way.” He issued a temporary restraining order against the state of New York that blocked a law prohibiting people from carrying guns in houses of worship.
The law of focus is called the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act,” which criminalizes possession of a firearm in “any place of worship or religious observation,” as well as in libraries, public parks, hospitals, and on any property controlled by the federal, state, or local government.
Judge Sinatra was nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2018. He said that New York’s law was “even more restrictive” than the one that was struck down this summer by the Supreme Court in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
He said that the state did not demonstrate that the law followed the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision this past June that the Constitution protects Americans’ right to carry guns outside their homes. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.”
Thomas added that “the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a hand-gun for self-defense outside the home.”
President Joe Biden did not like the Court’s decision and he said, “The ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution and should deeply trouble us all. … Lives are on the line.”
You may remember in December 2019, a gunman opened fire during a service at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. Keith Kinnunen murdered two people and was headed to kill more when 71-year-old Jack Wilson stopped him in his tracks with a perfect shot to the head.
Lives were on the line that day.
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