By Bill Sack, SAF Director of Legal Operations
As a young Jewish boy growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia not too long ago, that could have been me or my friends attending pre-school at our local Jewish school. Like millions of others around the country, I still have many people close to me who actively participate in their community churches and synagogues, whose children are there for learning, development and community.
No one who chooses to exercise their First Amendment rights should fear for their lives because they are defenseless in their house of worship. Unfortunately, the growing trend that a minority of states have adopted is to prohibit the lawful carry of firearms in so-called “sensitive places.” These laws don’t make us safer, and they violate the Constitution. The attacks in Michigan and Virginia remind us of this very fact.
Absolutely nothing about the blessings our communities and loved ones receive from their attendance at houses of worship are enhanced by the government forcing worshippers to be vulnerable, helpless and unable to protect their families. If not for the armed temple security on premises yesterday the loss of innocent life would have almost certainly been exponentially worse.
Nor is there anything about the pursuit of higher learning that should require peaceable adult students from choosing between their education and their God-given – and constitutionally guaranteed – right to self-defense. Disarming responsible people only feels smart until the catastrophic moment that evil criminal violence appears.
Laws banning the lawful carry of firearms at houses of worship and on college campuses are immoral, unethical, and flatly unconstitutional. Just as with exercising your right to protest, so too does your right to worship coexist simultaneously with your right to keep and bear arms.
Americans need not choose which right to enjoy one at a time, and they needn’t check their Second Amendment rights at the door of their temple or university. The events in Michigan and Virginia this week highlight precisely why this issue is of critical national importance.
The Second Amendment Foundation fights unconstitutional gun control in the courts all over the country. We challenged a house of worship carry ban in New York on behalf of two pastors who wished to go armed to protect their flocks, and had the law struck down. We continue to fight all over the country, challenging so-called “sensitive places” carry location restriction laws where overzealous anti-gun lawmakers have invented new categories of locations in which they demand you be unable to protect yourself and your family.
These laws don’t make us safer, something the Founders understood when they ratified the Second Amendment and guaranteed our right to bear arms in public.
Bill Sack is the Director of Legal Operations at Second Amendment Foundation, and is a practicing attorney and graduate of The George Washington University and Widener Law School. As Director of Legal Operations, Bill is responsible for oversight of SAF’s legal program to include litigation inception and management, tracking active cases, educating the public and cultivating SAF’s attorney referral network.
