The state of New York—with its quasi-religious commitment to anti-gun ideology—is once again violating the rights of peaceable Americans. State officials are denying religious groups the right to decide whether guns can be permitted on their own property. Disarmament is to be imposed on all, with no regard for the rights of those who may be left vulnerable to mass murder as a result.

I’m referring, of course, to the new gun control law Governor Kathy Hochul pushed in open defiance of the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision. After the Court struck down draconian permitting rules (which amounted to a carry ban), and upheld public carry as a constitutionally protected right, Hochul said the state was “not deterred” and “fought back” against the Bruen ruling with the new law. 

That law designates all private properties as “restricted locations,” where guns are automatically prohibited unless the owners permit them. Even worse, the law creates twenty categories of “sensitive places” where the general public is absolutely banned from having guns, even if the property owner wants to allow them. These “sensitive places” include all churches and places of worship. So, in one fell swoop, New York has violated religious liberty, property rights, and the right of self-defense.

Many religious adherents would consider it a duty to be armed in response to horrors like the Tree of Life synagogue attack, the Emanuel AME killings, or the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, as well as the more recent threats and attacks against pro-life religious believers. Meanwhile, mass shooters and other violent criminals obviously couldn’t care less about breaking a mere “sensitive places” law. As usual, gun control won’t stop criminals—it will only stop those who might stop them.  

Security for Me, But Not for Thee

A narrow set of exceptions has been written into New York’s new gun control law, which would allow churches to hire professional armed security. But this is a costly solution, and likely to leave many people still at risk in an attack. More to the point, it does not respect the individual right codified in the Second Amendment—which is the right to defend ourselves, not to be guarded by others.

Apart from licensed guards, the law primarily makes exceptions for current and former police officers, active-duty military, and other government employees to carry guns on religious premises. This is an elitist inversion of the Second Amendment, transforming “the right of the people” into a privilege earned by serving the state.

New York’s “sensitive places” law also ignores—or perhaps intentionally defies—the kind of history and precedent that the Supreme Court declared as decisive in the Bruen ruling.

Far from banning firearms in places of worship, several colonial-era statutes actually required that guns be brought to church. Taking this history as an indication of the Constitution’s original and authentic meaning, it is tough to argue that a total ban on this practice has any legal legitimacy based on historical precedent.

Thankfully, several challenges to New York’s gun control regime are now making their way through the courts—including a lawsuit by the New York State Jewish Gun Club, whose founder says the ban on firearms in places of worship is “unconstitutional on so many levels.” With religious freedom, property rights, and self-defense all at stake, he’s absolutely right.

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