Another Church in New York files suit<\/p>\n
New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship<\/a><\/p>\n New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship Rochester, NY<\/strong>\u2014First Liberty Institute and the law firms Clement & Murphy PLLC and Ganguly Brothers PLLC filed a federal lawsuit against the state of New York challenging the state\u2019s prohibition on firearms at houses of worship.\u00a0 The suit was filed on behalf of His Tabernacle Family Church, a nondenominational Christian church in Horseheads, New York, founded by Pastor Micheal Spencer.<\/p>\n You can read the complaint\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Erin Murphy, Partner at Clement & Murphy said, \u201cNo American should be forced to sacrifice one constitutionally protected freedom to enjoy another.\u00a0 Houses of worship have a constitutionally protected freedom to decide for themselves whether to allow otherwise legally possessed firearms into their facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSingling out houses of worship for total disarmament demonstrates hostility toward religion, leaves them defenseless to rebuff violent attacks, and defies at least two recent Supreme Court rulings against New York.\u00a0 Religious leaders are no less qualified than secular business owners to determine whether to allow carrying a firearm for self-defense, and New York should end its defiant assault on First and Second Amendment freedoms,\u201d added Jordan Pratt, Senior Counsel at First Liberty Institute.<\/p>\n In late 2020, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in\u00a0Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo<\/em>, chiding New York for singling out religious groups and restricting how they worship in violation of the First Amendment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>And in June 2022, the Court issued its opinion in\u00a0New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen<\/em>, invalidating New York\u2019s unprecedented effort to limit individuals\u2019 ability to carry a firearm outside the home.\u00a0 Just days later, New York enacted expansive new laws restricting the carrying of firearms outside the home, including a total ban on carrying in houses of worship.\u00a0 New York now imposes criminal liability on any person who carries a firearm into a place of worship regardless of whether that person possesses a license to carry a firearm under New York law, and regardless of whether the religious community would prefer to authorize congregants to carry a firearm.\u00a0 Secular business owners, by contrast, are allowed to choose for themselves whether to allow firearms on their premises.<\/p>\n \u201cThose decisions,\u201d the complaint states, \u201cshould have taught New York to proceed with extreme caution where First or Second Amendment rights are at stake going forward.\u00a0 Instead, the state recently doubled down on its rights-denying tendencies\u2014by infringing two fundamental liberties at the same time.\u00a0 New York now puts houses of worship and religious adherents to an impossible choice:\u00a0 forfeit your First Amendment right to religious worship or forfeit your Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense.\u201d \u00a0The complaint adds, \u201cNew York\u2019s attempt to force houses of worship and their parishioners to choose between their First Amendment rights and their Second\u2014an outlier policy shared by no other state in the Nation\u2014stands as an act of defiance to the Supreme Court\u2019s recent and emphatic holdings protecting\u00a0both<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another Church in New York files suit New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship First Liberty Institute, Clement & Murphy, and Ganguly Brothers challenge law adopted by NY legislature just days after Supreme Court struck down numerous state … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-rights","category-rkba","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87337,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87336\/revisions\/87337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>First Liberty Institute, Clement & Murphy, and Ganguly Brothers challenge law adopted by NY legislature just days after Supreme Court struck down numerous state restrictions on firearms<\/em><\/p>\n