Federal Judge Rules New York Church Gun Ban Unconstitutional Yet Again

A federal has once more found the state’s ban on carrying a gun in church, even by those with permits, violates New Yorkers’ rights.

Judge John Sinatra of the Western District of New York, a Trump appointee, again found the state’s ban unconstitutional on Thursday. The judge sided with the pastor of a church in his challenge against the state’s Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA) in Spencer v. Nigrelli. He ruled the ban violated worshipers’ gun rights and infringed on the free exercise of their religious beliefs.

“Ample Supreme Court precedent addressing the individual’s freedoms under the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution dictate that New York’s new place of worship exclusion is unconstitutional,” Sinatra wrote in his preliminary injunction of the law. “[T]he State fails the Second Amendment test set forth in Bruen. And it fares no better with respect to Plaintiffs’ claims under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment.”