Jewish Citizens Appeal Blue County Gun Ban, Say It’s ‘Impossible’ To Walk To Synagogue While Legally Carrying

Members of an Orthodox Montgomery County, Maryland, synagogue asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to block a law they say prohibits them from walking to their place of worship while carrying guns.

Senior United States District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow of the District of Maryland, a Clinton appointee, granted a preliminary injunction in September that allowed members of the Silver Spring Jewish Center to carry firearms in their place of worship. However, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to go further in a brief on behalf of the synagogue, saying that the religious beliefs of the members of the synagogue were not being respected by the county’s ban. 

“The district court held that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their related Second Amendment and Free Exercise challenges to the County’s ban on firearms in places of worship, and it preliminarily enjoined that ban as applied to them,” NCLA said in its Tuesday filing. “But the 100-yard rule still prevents Plaintiffs from exercising that right on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, when their religious beliefs require them to walk to synagogue, a trip that unavoidably passes within 100 yards of schools, parks, and other houses of worship.”

The Silver Spring Jewish Center practices Orthodox Judaism and is one of the oldest synagogues of that branch, according to its website. Orthodox Jews do not drive to their synagogues to worship, because they believe doing so would break the prohibition on “creative work” on the Sabbath.

“The Second Amendment protects everyone’s right to carry a firearm as they go about daily life. The First Amendment protects the right to freely exercise one’s religion,” NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel Jacob Huebert said in a Tuesday release. “The 100-yard rule deprives Silver Spring Jewish Center members of both. We’re hopeful the Fourth Circuit will recognize that and quickly block its enforcement.”

Churches and other places of worship have been attacked several times over the years, including in 2015, when a shooter killed nine people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church. A Mormon church was attacked in Grand Blanc, Michigan, in September 2025, while a San Diego mosque was targeted in May and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was struck by a mass shooter in October 2018.

Armed security guards at a West Bloomfield, Michigan, synagogue thwarted a Lebanese migrant who drove a truck into the building in March, saving the lives of children and staff.