Guns in Synagogue: Judge Rules for Rabbi in Maryland

A federal judge ruled on September 10, 2026, that Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro and the Silver Spring Jewish Center in Montgomery County, Maryland can legally carry guns in synagogue for self-defense. U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasanow blocked the county's new law banning firearms within 100 yards of any house of worship, finding the congregation likely to win its Second Amendment and religious-freedom claims. The ruling landed one day before Rosh Hashanah.

What Did Judge Chasanow Rule in the Montgomery County Gun Case?

Judge Deborah Chasanow, a senior U.S. District Court judge in Maryland, granted a preliminary injunction on September 10, 2026, in SSJC v. Montgomery County. Her order blocks the county from enforcing its firearm ban against Rabbi Shapiro and the Silver Spring Jewish Center specifically, not against every synagogue in the county.

Chasanow wrote that the plaintiffs had "demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits as to their as-applied Second Amendment claim of the Code's firearm restrictions as to places of worship." She based her reasoning partly on a Ninth Circuit finding that no colony, state or territory banned firearms at places of worship until after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. The county's historical justifications, she found, were not "well-accepted" enough to survive scrutiny.

What Does Montgomery County's Gun Law Actually Ban?

Montgomery County's Expedited Bill 23-26, signed by County Executive Marc Elrich on July 27, 2026, bans possessing, selling, transferring or transporting a firearm within 100 yards of any "place of public assembly," including houses of worship, schools, parks and libraries. The law applies even to licensed permit holders and even with a property owner's consent.

The county's own prosecutor called the law "probably unconstitutional," according to Rabbi Shapiro's account to JNS, and Montgomery County police agreed to stop issuing criminal citations under the law while litigation is pending. Civil citations carrying a maximum $500 fine remain possible. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a separate lawsuit against the county on August 3, 2026, arguing the 100-yard buffer is arbitrary and unconstitutional.

Montgomery County has lost similar fights before. Maryland's Supreme Court ruled in May 2026 that the county overstepped with a related gun restriction in a case called Engage Armament, and a separate federal ruling struck down the county's rule on ghost-gun carry. The county argued that comparable restrictions already exist in other Maryland jurisdictions; Silver Spring Jewish Center disputed that claim in a September 8 court filing, noting that Prince George's County restricts only loaded firearms, Charles County's cited provision applies only to air guns, and Gaithersburg and Takoma Park exempt licensed permit holders entirely.

Why Does Rabbi Shapiro Say Jewish Law Requires Carrying a Gun?

Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro told the court he holds a "sincerely held religious belief" that Jewish law requires him to carry a firearm "for personal, family, and communal protection," and that the duty falls on him personally. Judge Chasanow found he was likely to succeed on that free-exercise claim as well as his Second Amendment claim. Her opinion also drew on the Supreme Court's 2025 ruling in Wolford v. Lopez, which struck down Hawaii restrictions on carrying firearms in privately owned spaces without the owner's consent.

The Silver Spring Jewish Center relies on a volunteer security team of licensed congregants, many of them former military members, rather than hiring armed guards exclusively. The synagogue does employ one armed guard for part of the day, who is exempt from the law as a licensed security professional, but told the court it did not want to depend on hired guards alone. Shapiro told JNS the timing mattered: "I'm very pleased that the judge has granted our preliminary injunction, especially on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, as many Jews will gather in synagogue and ask, 'Who will live and who will die?'" Rosh Hashanah began the following night, September 11, 2026.

Jacob Huebert, senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represented the synagogue, called the ruling "an important victory for them, the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment." Shapiro separately told the NRA's Armed Citizen Podcast that county attorneys argued he did not actually hold a religious belief requiring a firearm, only a belief in providing security by some unspecified means, an argument he called "particularly wild."

How Does the Silver Spring Ruling Compare to New York's Ban on Guns in Synagogues?

The Silver Spring ruling reaches the opposite outcome from New York's Goldstein ruling, where a federal judge upheld the state's felony ban on carrying firearms in synagogues in 2023. New York treats unauthorized carry in a house of worship as a class E felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Montgomery County's civil citation tops out at $500.

Both laws followed the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, which let states designate "sensitive places" as gun-free zones. Chasanow's opinion diverges from the New York court's by finding the historical record for worship-space gun bans too thin to survive Second Amendment scrutiny, the same conclusion the Ninth Circuit reached in a related case she cited directly.

What Happens Next for Jewish Congregations in Montgomery County?

Chasanow's injunction protects only Rabbi Shapiro and Silver Spring Jewish Center members, so every other synagogue in Montgomery County remains subject to the law today. Steve Birnbaum, founder of the Jewish security nonprofit Collective Threat Response Initiative, welcomed the ruling but noted its limits: "This law still casts a shadow over their ability to do so in Montgomery County. We remain hopeful that the county will act now, rather than wait for the courts to finish what they have clearly started."

Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35, which represents Montgomery County police officers, has told members to use discretion around the law rather than actively enforce it. JShield, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington's security arm, declined to comment on the ruling. Neither response resolves the law's status for the other synagogues in the county still bound by the 100-yard buffer.

The case continues toward a full trial. Chasanow left two additional constitutional claims, an Establishment Clause claim and an Equal Protection claim, unresolved, and warned that appellate rulings in similar cases elsewhere could change her early conclusions.

Why Does the Right to Carry Guns in Synagogue Matter for Jewish Communities?

The Silver Spring case matters because it is one of the only rulings in the country to treat armed Jewish self-defense as a constitutionally and religiously protected practice, not just a security-budget question. Olam's audit of Jewish groups found that ten of 53 Conference of Presidents member organizations hold formal gun-control positions and zero have addressed whether congregants themselves should be armed.

That silence sits against a security bill the community is already paying. Jewish security spending nationally tops $765 million a year, a figure the Jewish Federations of North America has since revised upward to $1.05 billion. Most of that spending funds cameras, training and unarmed volunteers rather than armed guards. The stakes were made concrete on March 12, 2026, when a driver rammed a truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, during Shabbat services; the attack ended only when two armed security guards exchanged fire with him.

Shapiro's case argues the opposite of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" caution urged by the Secure Community Network in its 2025 guidance on armed congregants. Where SCN has argued that individual carry inside a sanctuary is not a viable option, Chasanow's ruling holds that the congregation itself, not the county, gets to make that call, the same distinction New York's own penal code draws between an authorized institutional security team and an unauthorized individual congregant.