A Maryland County Unconstitutionally Disarmed Jews Facing Antisemitic Threats, a Synagogue Says

The Silver Spring Jewish Center is asking the 4th Circuit to block Montgomery County rules that prevent congregants from exercising the right to bear arms.

Last July, Montgomery County, Maryland, enacted a ban on firearms in any "place of public assembly," which it defined to include parks, schools, and houses of worship, or within 300 feet of those locations. Three days after that law took effect, the Silver Spring Jewish Center (SSJC), an Orthodox synagogue, sued the county, arguing that it had unconstitutionally disarmed congregants at a time of rising antisemitic threats. A federal judge agreed in September, when she issued preliminary injunction that allowed carry-permit holders to possess guns inside the synagogue but left in place the 300-foot rule, which applies to pedestrians but not motorists.

That order, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty notes, created "a bizarre constitutional catch-22 where Jews can carry firearms inside the synagogue, but they cannot cross the street to bring them there." This week the SSJC and Menashe Shapiro, a congregant who is also an ordained rabbi, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to remedy that puzzling situation, arguing that it violates the plaintiffs' Second Amendment right to armed self-defense and their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

"Protecting synagogue members' right to carry within their synagogue but prohibiting them from carrying to the entrance is no protection at all," says Becket Fund Senior Counsel Eric Baxter, who represents the SSJC along with lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA). "We're asking the Fourth Circuit to end this assault on Marylanders' bedrock constitutional rights."

Especially since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, "antisemitic incidents have threatened" the SSJC, the plaintiffs say. "For example, in October 2024, a visibly Jewish member was attacked just outside the building, and in June 2026, an unknown individual attempted to gain entry." In response, the SSJC created "an armed volunteer security team" consisting of carry-permit holders like Shapiro.

In addition to barring those volunteers from bringing their guns into the synagogue after parking nearby, Montgomery County's law, even as modified by U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasanow's injunction, presents a special problem for Orthodox Jews, who do not use automobiles on the Sabbath or on holidays that entail similar restrictions. That means SSJC members cannot even legally transport their guns to the vicinity of the synagogue on those occasions, since they would pass within 300 feet of parks, schools, and other houses of worship while walking there.

"The Second Amendment protects everyone's right to carry a firearm as they go about daily life," NCLA senior litigation counsel Jacob Huebert notes. "The First Amendment protects the right to freely exercise one's religion. The 100-yard rule deprives Silver Spring Jewish Center members of both."

Although Montgomery County's buffer zones are ostensibly aimed at protecting public safety, they have the opposite effect as applied to the SSJC. "Our synagogue has long been a sanctuary for Jews to worship, pray, and gather in peace," says SSJC Rabbi Yaakov Greiniman. "As the scourge of antisemitic violence grows more widespread and brazen, we have a sacred duty to defend our congregation. Montgomery County has made that impossible."

The plaintiffs' Second Amendment argument relies on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the 2022 decision in which the Supreme Court recognized that the constitutional right to bear arms includes the right to carry guns in public for self-defense. Under Bruen, restrictions on that right must be "consistent with this Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation." To meet that test, Montgomery County has the burden of citing historical analogs that are "relevantly similar" to its law in motivation and scope.

The county has identified "no historical support for a 100-yard buffer around places of worship," the plaintiffs say. As for parks, they argue, the local ordinances cited in prior litigation are not sufficient to establish a historical tradition. They note that "three of the five ordinances come from Pennsylvania, so only three States are represented" and that all but one were enacted in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Chasanow perceived a historical tradition supporting Montgomery County's buffer zone around schools. But she relied on a case from the Eastern District of California that involved the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, which makes an exception for people with state-issued carry permits. "The federal statute is therefore not relevantly similar to Montgomery County's law," the plaintiffs say.

Montgomery County offered several more purported historical analogs, including polling-place laws that "do not concern places of worship, parks, or schools" and "applied only on election or registration days." Its other examples were similarly inapposite. The county, in short, "has identified no historical tradition of banning firearms within 100 yards of places of worship, parks, or schools."

The plaintiffs also argue that Montgomery County's law impinges on religious liberty. "Talmudic and later religious sources command Jews to proactively provide their own security and the security of other Jews," they say. "In light of the threat environment, SSJC considers it a religious obligation to ensure that at least some members carry firearms." They add that Shapiro "holds the sincere religious belief that Jewish law requires him to carry a firearm for personal, family, and communal protection, a duty he must perform personally."

Chasanow agreed that "SSJC and Rabbi Shapiro have demonstrated a burden on their sincere religious practice." She also concluded that Montgomery County's ban on guns in houses of worship implicates the Free Exercise Clause because it is not "neutral and generally applicable," noting that it does not cover fraternal lodges and "numerous other privately owned businesses and properties" where people gather. Chasanow said the law was therefore subject to "strict scrutiny," a demanding test that the county did not even try to pass: "Defendants have not made any showing as to whether the law's application to places of worship is the 'least restrictive means of achieving some compelling state interest.'"

The plaintiffs argue that Chasanow nevertheless erred by treating their argument against the buffer zones as a facial challenge, meaning they had to show the rules were unconstitutional in every application. Given the specific relief they sought, they say, it should have been clear that they were challenging the restrictions as applied to them.

"It takes a lot of chutzpah to trample on the First and Second Amendments at the same time," Shapiro says. "Yet that's precisely what Montgomery County has done here, forcing Jews to choose between different tenets of their faith and simultaneously compromising their safety. Our Constitution forbids such impossible choices. I pray the court ends this senseless ban for good and allows my community to defend itself from threats."