Obama Judge Denies NY Jews a Temporary Stop of Hochul’s Ban On Guns In Synagogues
In an insulting reiteration of NY Governor Kathy Hochul’s stunning hypocrisy over the rights of people to defend themselves, an Obama-appointed judge has DENIED a requested Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the NY state “sensitive area” gun ban called the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), which went into effect September 1.
As I recently reported, the New York State Jewish Gun Club filed suit on September 29, after members and the group’s legal council recognized the threat of the CCIA – which Hochul signed on July 1, and which represents her leftist NY Assembly’s blitzkrieg response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June “Bruen” gun decision supposedly insuring that the right to keep and bear arms also includes the obvious right to carry a concealed weapon outside the home. The half-hearted Bruen decision left wiggle room for oppressive state politicians to claim that certain “sensitive” public areas were off limits to the right of concealed-carry.
And Hochul’s hypocrisy is so towering that, even as she backed a “legislative package” supposedly honoring Holocaust victims over the summer, she and her pals in the state legislature smacked together a new statute that would ban concealed carry within synagogues and houses or worship — or, as I mentioned, at any of what they ambiguously call places where there is a “religious observance.”
In other words, she is threatening people that she will use gun-grabbing state aggression, and possibly use it against some of the same Holocaust survivors and/or their descendants who were attacked by the gun-grabbing Nazi regime.
Now, the new development. The NY State Jewish Gun Club filing in Federal District Court to temporarily restrain enforcement of Hochul’s gangland CCIA “religious observance” and “house of worship” gun ban has proven fruitless. BearingArms’ Cam Edwards caught the news, right away:
“Their first request was for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the state from enforcing that portion of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act; a request that was denied on Monday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick.”
And, guess what? The judge got his tax-funded job thanks to leftist political engineers:
“In his ruling, the Obama-appointed judge (who also has political ties to gun control fans Michael Bloomberg and former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo) found that the plaintiffs had not met the requirements for a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order)…”
Here, observers can see a telling sign of the difference between a person who respects natural, God-given, rights, and a person looking only at material concerns, a person who cannot understand, or will not acknowledge, that the term “injury” does not pertain merely to physical harm, but includes the abstract and perennial realm of principles.
Broderick’s argument stands on the spongy notion that, as he declares:
“…I find that the harm pled is too remote and speculative, and fails to reach the stringent standard of ‘immediate irreparable harm.’”
In reality, what Broderick is saying is that a state gang – a group that already forcibly makes you pay it, and that always is ready to send armed agents to grab or physically hurt you – can, a-priori, threaten you with armed attack should you wish to engage in peaceful behavior, thus stripping you of your right to self-defense, and putting in greater risk your right to religious worship.
The injury to one’s rights is manifest. Rights may be immaterial things, but their truth, their reality, their universalizable nature, and their unlockable interweave with our physical bodies are undeniable.
And by its very existence, Hochul’s CCIA injures human rights. As Edwards observes:
“I could not disagree more with Broderick. Not only are the Second Amendment rights of the plaintiffs being violated here, their First Amendment rights are being harmed as well thanks to the state’s decision to tell houses of worship how they can and can’t protect themselves or their flock. Is this harm irreparable? Well, as long as the laws are being enforced I’d say yes. While the judge calls the impact of these laws ‘remote and speculative’, the fact is that these laws are already having an impact on the plaintiffs, as their original complaint made clear.”
Edwards outlines the personal story of one synagogue attendee who will no longer be going, because he cannot protect himself and his family from anti-Jewish violence the likes of which has occurred around Brooklyn.
This Broderick decision hinged solely on the “harm” portion of the gun club’s attempt to get a TRO. As Edwards notes, plaintiffs also have asked for an injunction against enforcement of CCIA, overall, not just a Temporary Restraining Order:
“There’s actually still a chance that the judge will do the right thing here, though it will take several weeks of delay. Broderick ordered the parties to show up on October 28th for oral arguments on a similar request for an injunction blocking enforcement of the law while its constitutionality is being debated, but if he found the alleged harm suffered by the plaintiffs to be too “remote and speculative” to issue a TRO, I’m not sure why he would come to a different conclusion on an injunction.”
We will keep our eyes on the case.