MAY A PERSON CARRY A HANDGUN INTO A HOUSE OF WORSHIP, IN NEW YORK? HOCHUL GOVERNMENT KEEPS GUN OWNERS GUESSING.(article extensively updated on July 8, 2023)
INTRODUCTORY QUOTATION
“When Hitler came for the Jews. . . I was not a Jew; therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler came for the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions, and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.” ~ Quote best ascribed to Martin Niemoller, German Theologian, and Lutheran Pastor. Also check out Stephen Halbrook’s book, “Gun Control in the Third Reich” that Robert Unger cites.
We wish to thank Robert Unger, Attorney at Law, for pointing this quotation out to us. He writes, “As documented by the cutting-edge book, ‘Gun Control in the Third Reich,’ the totalitarians are once again trying to prevent Jews from defending their lives. Every decent human being, whether Jew or Gentile needs to be concerned. As the Rev Martin Niemoller stated in this shortened paraphrase, ‘First they came for the handicapped, and I said nothing, and then they came for the Jews, and I said nothing. Then they came for me and nobody was left to say anything.’”
Special Note: Robert Unger hosts the podcast, “The Bob Unger Show” @thebobungershow1567 Check out Bob’s Podcast on Rumble.
Also check out Stephen Halbrook’s book, “Gun Control in the Third Reich” that Robert Unger cites.
The Goldstein vs. Hochul Case
With dozens of cases filed challenging New York’s reprehensible “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA), which the Democrat Party-controlled legislature passed on July 1, 2022, and that Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the same day, coming on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, published just one week earlier, on June 23, 2022, one obscure case is worth mentioning. It is Goldstein vs. Hochul, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111124 (S.D.N.Y, June 23, 2023).
The facts of the Complaint as presented by the Court are as follows:
“Goldstein ‘is a U.S. citizen who resides in Kings County in the State of New York.’ Goldstein [and other similarly situated Plaintiffs] have carried handguns for self-defense at shul [Jewish Temple] prior to the enactment of the CCIA. They allege that after the enactment of the CCIA, they have (1) decreased their attendance at shul due to their inability to carry a firearm, ‘significantly curtail[ed]’ their religious practice, Plaintiffs further allege that the prohibition of concealed carry within places of worship and religious observation ‘acts as a deterrent for law-abiding people to enter’ and makes religious locations more dangerous. On the same day, Goldstein individually and on behalf of the Congregation, and Ornstein filed a motion for TRO and PI enjoining Defendants Governor Hochul, Attorney General James, Commissioner Sewell, Sheriff Falco, District Attorney Gonzalez, and District Attorney Walsh from enforcing the Sensitive Locations restriction, the provision in CCIA designating ‘any place of worship or religious observation’ as a Sensitive Location. Plaintiffs claim that the Sensitive Locations restriction of the CCIA violates their rights under the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin Defendants from enforcing the places of worship and religious observation exclusion, alleging that they would suffer immediate and irreparable harm without immediate injunctive relief.” [document citations omitted]
The Goldstein lawsuit is directed to the unconstitutional “Sensitive Place” (also referred to as “Sensitive Location”) restriction/prohibition to otherwise lawful concealed handgun carry that the Hochul Government has imposed on all holders of valid New York State concealed handgun carry licenses who derive their licenses to carry through the operation of NY CLS Penal § 400.00 (2)(f) of the State’s Handgun Law.
Goldstein’s motivation for filing a lawsuit against the Hochul Government is not hypothetical.
In recent years Synagogues in the United States, have been selectively targeted in a spate of “hate crimes.” See, e.g., the NPR article, dated February 17, 2023; the ABC News report, dated, January 19, 2022; and an updated June 16, 2023, CBS News report.
The essence of the Plaintiffs’ claim is that the meaning of ‘House of Worship’ in the New York State Penal Code is vague and that the Government’s prohibition on the carrying of a handgun violates the First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Goldstein and other Plaintiffs have asked for immediate relief. But, the Court ruled that the Plaintiffs had not met the stringent standards required for a Preliminary Injunction and that the Plaintiffs’ Constitutional Arguments did not outweigh the Government’s solitary claim (coming solely from a Press Release) that the Governor has a duty to “‘protect New Yorkers,’ and that ‘keeping the people of New York State safe’ was their greatest priority.’”
Apparently, armed Congregants in a “House of Worship” setting are a present danger to “keeping the people of New York State safe.” This is simply a platitude and a trite, vacuous banality, and, worst of all, a bald-faced lie. The Hochul Government, under Governor Kathy Hochul, and the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams have not protected the people of New York. Violent crime has skyrocketed in New York, especially in New York City. See, e.g., Arbalest Quarrel essay, dated, June 26, 2023.
But Hochul’s assertion that “keeping the people of New York Safe” is her Government’s “greatest priority” comes across not simply as empty political rhetoric—which is bad enough—but as sarcasm, in the face of horrific incidents of often random violent crime perpetrated on innocent people going about their daily life in New York.
In such a climate, it is incumbent on average, innocent, rational people to take responsibility for their own safety and well-being. And a responsible person carrying a handgun, concealed, in public for their own personal protection, and knowledgeable in the use of it and prepared to use it if or when the need arises, provides hands-down the best means of personal protection against violent, aggressive attack. It has always been so. But, IT IS the very effectiveness of a handgun for personal self-defense that the New York Government abhors. For the well-armed citizenry is the gravest threat to the Tyrant. It is THIS fact, more than anything else, that drives the Hochul Government’s antagonistic firearms policy—a fact left unremarked on. But why, after all, would Tyrants acknowledge their own Tyranny? The Tyrant need not assert a Tyrant’s fear of their own people. That fear is exhibited clearly enough in their self-righteous, deceitful rhetoric and in the subsequent actions taken to constrain dissent and to strenuously constrain if not curtail the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
It is the same dreaded fear of the armed common people that drove Kathy Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, to institute further firearms restrictions in the State, which he accomplished when he signed the New York Safe Act into law, in 2013.
And it is that same fear of the common people that drives the present Biden Administration to attack the fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense.
It is this fear of the armed citizenry that motivates the Administration to craft and implement a plethora of policies aimed at maximizing control over that citizenry—the common people of the United States.
The aim of the Government should be to provide “Public Safety,” not merely to recite it in a Press Release.
But, the Government act of providing for “Public Safety” need not be and ought not to be construed as antithetical to one’s right and responsibility to provide for his or her “Personal Safety.”
The two can coexist happily together. They are not logically inconsistent concepts. One is the aim and responsibility of the Government. The other rests with and is the responsibility of the individual.
But the Hochul Government treats the two as incompatible, adversarial concepts, or otherwise, presumes, albeit wrongly, that the one, “Personal Safety” is subsumed in the other, “Public Safety.”
Yet the Government’s duty to provide for the one doesn’t offset or replace the responsibility of the individual to adhere to and provide for the other. And the sad truth is that both fail in the reality of a failed State, which is what New York is becoming.
The Hochul Government gives lip service to “Public Safety” concerns, yet faults the U.S. Supreme Court for ordering the State to adhere to the plain meaning of the language of the Second Amendment that speaks incisively and decisively of the basic human right of “Personal Safety”—understood as the fundamental, unalienable, illimitable, immutable, and unmodifiable right to Armed “Self-Defense.” The two are co-extensive.
The Hochul Government pretends to provide for the one, that it must, and does not, and yet denies a person his right to secure the other, but cannot, given the constraints of Government, preventing him from doing so even though it be inextricably tied to his very Being. And, so, a person is left with neither. How can that be?
The concept of Armed Self-Defense is nothing new. Our Country, a free Constitutional Republic would not have existed without the application of it.
The fundamental right to Armed Self-Defense proceeds from the right to Self-Defense. It is not distinct from it. It is one with it, inextricably bound to it. ‘The Right to Self-Defense’ means ‘The Right to Protect one’s Life.’
The Right to Armed Self-Defense’ is not then, to be perceived as a thing different in kind from ‘The Right to Self-Defense.’ It is simply an aspect of it: Recognition that a firearm provides the best, most effective means of defense available to thwart an aggressive attack—whether such an attack emanates from a predatory beast, predatory man, or predatory government.
The Hochul Government and the Biden Administration must know this. Both are Tyrants. Both know they are Tyrants and both know that a free Constitutional Republic cannot and will not long suffer Tyrants. An armed citizen presents a tangible threat to the Tyrant. That troubles the Tyrant, as well as it should. And, so, an armed citizenry troubles the Tyrant.
For, if the armed citizen has the fundamental right to defend himself against an aggressive predator threatening his life, that armed citizen also has the fundamental right to defend himself against a tyrannical, predatory Government. And, in both instances, he has a duty to do so. The Tyrannical Government would rather not talk about the right of the people to keep and bear arms against that Tyrannical Government. So, instead, the Government talks about the armed citizen in connection with criminal violence.
The Government argues, deceptively, cunningly, that it is the job of the Government, not the citizen, to deal with the violent criminal (which the Government has done a very poor job doing), and that an armed citizen will eventually commit criminal violence by virtue simply of being armed, even though there are no statistics to support that conclusion.
Thus, the Government deflects conversation away from the subject of Tyranny, and of the predatory behavior of Government, and of the natural tendency of all Governments to eventually turn to Tyranny in the absence of substantial Checks and Balances on Government behavior and in the absence of a well-armed citizenry—the ultimate fail-safe to prevent, or curb or, at least, frustrate the onset of Tyranny.
But even as we see today strenuous attacks against the Divine Right to Armed Self-Defense to secure one’s life and safety and that of one’s family from a predator, we see scurrilous and bizarre attacks by the Government on the very notion of a right to ‘Self-Defense’ at all. This suggests clear intent on the part of the Government, today, to devalue human life. The Framers of the Constitution would be appalled. Such an idea is inconsistent with the basic tenets of the Constitution grounded on the sanctity and inviolability of human life.
The U.S. Constitution is grounded on the tenets, principles, and precepts of Individualism. Those tenets, principles, and precepts are anathema to those holding power in Government today who are attempting to foist an entirely new political philosophical system on the Country—one that is based on the tenets, principles, and precepts of Collectivism.
CCP China is a prime example of this. But, even in CCP China, the State does provide for “Public Safety,” if, for no other reason, than to promote stability within the State. Crime is not tolerated in China. Violent crime is dealt with quickly and harshly. Physical safety exists, but it comes at a cost. The sanctity of the individual counts for little if anything. There is no notion of individual autonomy. One might well wonder whether life under Tyranny is better than no life at all. The Founders of our Republic didn’t think so. And they fought a war to a successful conclusion to make their feelings known.
Had they failed, they would have been hanged. Some Patriots caught by the British were hanged.
In America today, the Government, under the Biden Administration, talks about favored and disfavored “Groups,” not “Individuals.”
One either belongs to a favored Group or one belongs to a “Group of Outcasts,” such as “MAGA” Republicans, “Christian Nationalists,” and “Political Conservatives,” generally.
But, unlike CCP China, the Biden Administration and several State Governments such as that of New York don’t even provide a modicum of “Public Safety.” Violent criminals are not dealt with harshly. Rather, they are continually released to commit more violence on innocent people.
And these same Governments that refuse to provide any measurable “Public Safety,” talk not of “Personal Safety.” That concept isn’t part of their political philosophy and, so, does not appear in their lexicon. And there is a reason for that. ‘Personal Safety’ is tied to ‘Self-Defense,’ and that entails ‘Armed Self-Defense.’ And those concepts are anathema to these Governments.
The Biden Administration and the Hochul Government eschew both, finding Self-Defense inconsistent with their adherence to Collectivist principles that place value on “Group Conformity” over “Individual Autonomy.” And they especially abhor the concept of “Armed Self-Defense” as that represents an existential threat to their accumulation of and lust for power and concomitant absolute control over the common people.
A Government that operates within the strictures of the U.S. Constitution has nothing to fear from an armed citizenry. A Government that does not has much to fear from an armed citizenry. And Government today is much afraid of an armed citizenry that hews to a belief system that adheres to the principles of the Founders who constructed a free Constitutional Republic when the Government, today, no longer does so.
When a Government—this Government—forgets that its sole existence derives from a free sovereign people, then it becomes a veritable enemy of the people. And, knowing that it has become an enemy of the people, commences to treat its people as a threat, and proceeds, unlawfully, to constrain the fundamental rights of the people whose best interests it has a duty to serve, but has long since removed itself from.
New York’s Hochul Government, for its part, could, if it truly wished to do so, clamp down on rampant, violent crime, plaguing the State, and particularly the City of New York, but it chooses not to do so. There are several reasons for this. Two major ones are worth mentioning here.
One, her base of supporters, her constituency, will not allow concerted efforts to clamp down on violent crime. Even as that constituency, itself, suffers the consequences of violent crime, its mindset is so confounded and befuddled by incessant psychological programming, that it refuses to consider the impact that a highly restrictive firearms policy has on its own safety and well-being and, at one and the same time, insists upon a lax justice system and a shackled police, thereby inviting the very crime visited upon it.
Two, Kathy Hochul and her Government take their cue from the Biden Administration. The Biden Administration’s end goal is the dissolution of the Republic, the dismantling of an independent, sovereign Nation-State, and the subjugation of a once free and sovereign people.
Thus, the Biden Administration and the Hochul Government devise more and more scurrilous lies to cover their unethical, and patently unlawful objectives, pretending that all their policies are well-intentioned, even as they deliberately, duplicitously set one American against another, lest they organize and unite against the true threat to their well-being and safety: the Government, itself.
And, so it is that Hochul goes on and on clamoring over “Public Safety” and how her application of it is impeded by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Pistol and Rifle Association vs. Bruen, and that it is she and not the High Court that has the best interests of New Yorkers at heart.
But truth to tell, Hochul has jabbered about “Public Safety” well before the Bruen decision came down. And, with the publication of Bruen, the public hears this constantly, insistently without reprieve. See the article in the Gothamist, posted on March 25, 2022, and note the “props” on the stage. But, even if the Hochul Government truly desired to provide for “Public Safety,” that doesn’t obviate the responsibility of the individual to provide for his or her own “Personal Safety.”
The fact remains the right to armed self-defense and the responsibility for it rests, as it always did, with the individual, not the State. See January 19, 2020 article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News. In that same publication, see also the article posted on August 6, 2020, titled, “The Government Cannot Protect You; You Must Protect Yourself,” and the article posted on November 26, 2019, titled, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us.”
It is with the realization of the failure of the Hochul Government to truly promote “Public Safety,” despite her vehement remarks to the contrary, and it is with the equally important realization that one’s “Personal Safety” and that of one’s family ultimately rests solely with the individual, that Goldstein and others similarly situated filed their lawsuit against the Hochul Government.
The Goldstein case is the latest of the dozens heretofore filed in New York Federal District Court that present holders of valid New York concealed handgun carry licenses filed against the Hochul Government for refusal to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Bruen.
Enactment of New York’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act—although presented by Hochul as evidence of the State’s compliance with the Bruen rulings—was and is a bald-faced violation of the Bruen rulings and, at one and the same time.
Striking “Proper Cause” from the State’s Handgun Law serves as mere window dressing. The amendments to the Law (the CCIA) as enacted are more of an arrogant remonstration against the U.S. Supreme Court and a contemptuous repudiation of the Article 3 authority of the Court than they are a concerted effort to comply with the Court’s rulings. It would have come, then, as no surprise to Kathy Hochul that New York handgun licensees would see through the ploy.
The Plaintiffs in Goldstein filed their Notice of Appeal, of the adverse decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, on July 5, 2023.
On July 6, 2023, Arbalest Quarrel had an opportunity to talk to a spokesman for the Temple who is knowledgeable about the lawsuit, Tzvi Waldman. Mr. Waldman’s group, the “NYS Jewish Gun Club,” is backing the lawsuit. And on July 10, Bob Unger (whom we reference in the first paragraph of this article) invited Tzvi Waldman to appear on Bob’s Podcast that aired on July 10, 2023, on the Rumble Video Platform.
When AQ spoke with Mr. Waldman on July 6, 2023, a few days before Bob’s Podcast, we pointed out that the Arbalest Quarrel cannot and does not give legal advice, but we do provide non-legal, well-researched information about the Second Amendment for educational purposes.
Both Bob Unger and the Arbalest Quarrel wish to assist the NYS Jewish Gun Club in their challenge to the Hochul Government’s unlawful attempt to abridge the fundamental right to armed self-defense of the Jewish Community in New York that has suffered substantial hate crime attacks, especially in the last few years.
The Hochul Government is oblivious to the needs and concerns of Jews, and of all innocent New Yorkers despite her claims to the contrary.
On her official website, on January 10, 2023, Hochul said this:
“Public safety is my top priority. . . .“I am committed to using every tool at my disposal to protect the people of this state, crack down on gun violence and violent crime, and invest in proven solutions that keep New Yorkers safe.”
It is all empty rhetoric. While spurning a person’s fundamental right to provide for one’s own “Personal Safety” through the exercise of the basic right to armed self-defense, the Hochul Government leaves the Common Man abjectly defenseless, for she provides neither “Public Safety” for the New York communities, nor allows the Common Man to bear arms for his own personal defense.
Concerning the salient legal matters for Plaintiffs to address apropos of the Goldstein case——
First, we mentioned to Mr. Waldman that, as the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and others have ruled that Governor Kathy Hochul is not a proper Party defendant for a lawsuit involving the CCIA, any case naming her principal Party Defendant will be dismissed for lack of standing since she is not the person actively implementing and enforcing the CCIA. For the same reason, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, is not a proper Party Defendant to the lawsuit. The Plaintiffs should strike her name from the Goldstein case.
Consistent with the allegations of the Complaint, the principal and proper Party Defendant is the NYPD Police Commissioner, since it is the NYPD Police Commissioner, here, not the Governor, who is directly involved in the enforcement of the CCIA, as it affects the Plaintiffs in the Goldstein case, and notwithstanding Hochul’s obvious connection in getting the thing enacted and then signing it into law in the first instance. Had she not signed the CCIA into law, there would be nothing about the CCIA that the Police Commissioner would be able to enforce. Hence, it is quite understandable that the Goldstein Plaintiffs would assume that the New York Governor would be a proper Party Defendant and the principal Party Defendant, even if Hochul, is not, after the fact, the person who is enforcing the CCIA. It
The present interim New York City Police Commissioner, Edward Caban, recently appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, is the proper and principal Party Defendant in the Goldstein case. This is a ministerial problem that is easily corrected. See the NY Times article published on June 20, 2023. The Times reports,
“Edward Caban, the New York Police Department’s first deputy commissioner and an ally of Mayor Eric Adams, will become the interim head of the agency, the mayor said Friday.
‘There’s a natural process in place that the first deputy commissioner falls in line until we make a permanent announcement on who the commissioner is going to be,’ Mr. Adams said during a radio appearance on 1010 WINS. ‘And we are going to find a suitable replacement.’
The announcement coincided with the last day in office of Keechant L. Sewell, the department’s first female commissioner, who abruptly announced her resignation two weeks ago, after finding that her powers had been circumscribed by the mayor and his allies.”
And, the Plaintiffs should also add the name Steven Nigrelli, the acting Superintendant of the New York State Police, as a Party Defendant to the suit. All or most Post-Bruen New York cases challenging aspects of the CCIA in a United States District Court for one of the four Districts in the State have captioned these cases with the name Steven Nigrelli, as the principal Party Defendant. This practice is consistent with the captioning of the parent case, NYSRPA vs. Bruen, challenging the Constitutionality of New York’s Handgun Law, where, at the time, Kevin Bruen was the Superintendent of the New York State Police. The recaptioning of the case is essentially a ministerial, administrative matter that does not go to the substantive matters of the case.
Second, and much more concerning, is the Court’s opinion that fails to mention the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Hardaway v. Nigrelli, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200813 (W.D.N.Y. November 3, 2021). This flaw impacts the salient substantive matter pertaining to the right of worshippers to carry handguns into a House of Worship for self-defense. The only qualifier is the worshipper must be the recipient of a valid New York concealed handgun carry license issued by the appropriate New York licensing official. But, the U.S. District Court ruled that Houses of Worship are “Sensitive Places” under the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, and therefore a worshipper cannot carry a handgun into a House of Worship. This flies in the face of the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the Hardaway case.
The Court, in Goldstein, must have known about the Hardaway case, and the matter addressed by the Second Circuit in its interlocutory order is certainly relevant to and directly impacts the central issue in the Goldstein case, namely, whether a member of the Temple can carry a concealed handgun into the Temple for the purpose of self-defense. But the U.S. District Court, in Goldstein, says not a word about that Opinion. In fact, the District Court’s opinion on the matter is summed up in a paragraph where the Court asserts,
“Laws forbidding ‘the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings’ are consistent with the Second Amendment. Lower courts may ‘use analogies’ to historical regulations of sensitive places, such as schools, government buildings, legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses, to ‘determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible. Although the Court does not explicitly define what constitutes a sensitive place, it does address specific examples that provide lower courts with some guidelines on the limits of doctrine. For example, we know that it would be ‘too broad’ to classify the entire island of Manhattan simply because it is ‘crowded and protected generally by the New York City Police Department. However, it is also not so narrow that the Government must find an identical law from the relevant historical periods for the modern-day regulation to be allowed.” [Citations Omitted]. The District Court does not consider the fact that Houses of Worship are exempt from the CCIA’s “Sensitive Place” Restrictions to the lawful carrying of a handgun.
But the District Court says nothing about the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling in Hardaway, where the Court pointed out (prior to the Goldstein case) that a lawfully licensed person carrying a handgun concealed in a House of Worship is exempted from the ‘Sensitive Place’ prohibition when that person is “tasked with the duty to keep the peace.” The failure of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to acknowledge this ruling and either adhere to it or attempt to argue around it constitutes a fatal flaw in the District Court’s reasoning, negatively impacting the entirety of the District Court’s Opinion in Goldstein.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Hardaway v. Nigrelli, said this:
“Appellants request a stay pending appeal of the district court's order dated November 3, 2022 (W.D.N.Y. 22-cv-771, doc. 52), enjoining Appellants from enforcing a provision of New York's Concealed Carry Improvement Act criminalizing possession of a firearm in a place of worship or religious observation. See N.Y. Penal Law § 265.01-e(2)(c). Having weighed the applicable factors, see In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 503 F.3d 167, 170 (2d Cir. 2007), we conclude that a stay pending appeal is warranted. Accordingly, upon due consideration, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion for a stay pending appeal is GRANTED and the district court's November 3 order is STAYED pending the resolution of this appeal. To the extent that the district court's order bars enforcement of § 265.01-e(2)(c) as it pertains to persons who have been tasked with the duty to keep the peace at places of worship, such category is EXCEPTED from this order.” [emphasis our own].
The failure of the Court in Goldstein to even mention the Hardaway Opinion is concerning and disconcerting. But, on the Plaintiffs’ new appeal to the Second Circuit, the Second Circuit should see through the flaw in the District Court’s Goldstein opinion. The Second Circuit should find that consistent with its earlier Opinion in the Hardaway case, people who have a lawful license to carry a handgun in New York must be allowed to carry a handgun in a House of Worship precisely because that “Sensitive Place” Restriction is now EXCEPTED from Government enforcement.
A decision of the Second Circuit involving one U.S. District Court applies to all the lower U.S. District Courts in New York. Apparently, the Southern District of New York, where the Goldstein case was brought, doesn’t see this. That might explain why the Court doesn’t mention the Hardaway opinion. But, there is a wrinkle to this, and it is one that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Goldstein might have and should have fleshed out for itself. That it did not do so is troubling.
But there is a potential problem, and it involves the meaning of “with the duty to keep the peace.” If that phrase implies that anyone who carries a handgun in a “House of Worship” is, ipso facto, presumed to be carrying “with the duty to keep the peace,” which is a reasonable conclusion to be drawn, then any person who desires to carry a handgun in a House of Worship for the Constitutionally protected purpose of armed self-defense, and who holds a valid New York State concealed handgun license to carry has complied with the CCIA.
However, if the phrase means that only armed security guards are those individuals who are considered as having “the duty to keep the peace” (apart from Police Officers, Peace Officers, and others exempted from “Sensitive Location” restrictions, as set forth in N.Y. Penal Law § 265.01-e), then a person who wishes to carry a handgun into a House of Worship must comply with stringent and onerous requirements to obtain a special license to carry. See, e.g., requirements as set forth on the New York Government’s Division of Criminal Justice Services website.
But the State Statute doesn’t explicitly refer to armed security guards in the context of “House of Worship” in the Penal Code.
It may well be that the phrase “with the duty to keep the peace” was intentionally meant by its drafters to be vague. If so, that explains why the State Legislature in Albany would add that phrase as a trap for the unwary. In effect, it would mean that carrying a handgun into a House of Worship remains a “Sensitive Place” where one cannot lawfully carry a handgun for self-defense, after all.
If this is true, and it may be an argument the Government would henceforth make, when its agents commence arresting worshipers who happen to be carrying a handgun in a House of Worship, that would be in keeping with the State’s agenda to continually harass handgun owners, as the Government continues to constrain the exercise of one’s fundamental, unalienable right to armed self-defense.
The New York Government’s end goal seems to be to make the entire State into one all-encompassing “Sensitive Place Gun-Free Zone,” and the common people and the U.S. Supreme Court* be damned if they don’t agree with that.
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*Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in Bruen, aware that the New York Government would attempt to transform broad swaths of New York into “Sensitive Places,” expressly cautioned the State against doing this. The Justice writes, “Although we have no occasion to comprehensively define ‘sensitive places’ in this case, we do think respondents err in their attempt to characterize New York’s proper-cause requirement as a ‘sensitive-place’ law. In their view, ‘sensitive places’ where the government may lawfully disarm law-abiding citizens include all ‘places where people typically congregate and where law-enforcement and other public-safety professionals are presumptively available.’ Brief for Respondents 34. It is true that people sometimes congregate in ‘sensitive places,’ and it is likewise true that law enforcement professionals are usually presumptively available in those locations. But expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of ‘sensitive places’ far too broadly.”