New York gun control advocates are enraged after a Trump-appointed judge blocked an unconstitutional gun law from taking effect and then raked Democrats over the coals for attempting to “eviscerate the Bill of Rights.”

U.S. District Judge John Sinatra Jr. issued an injunction that blocked a law that prohibits people in New York from bearing arms in places of worship.

Two clerics and a number of gun rights organizations sued over the law, asking for an injunction until the court could hear the merits of the case. Pastor Jimmie Hardaway of Trinity Baptist Church of Niagara Falls argued he used to conceal carry his firearm prior to the enactment of the worship ban for “self-defense” and wants to encourage his parishioners to do the same. Hardaway asserts that he has been “stripped of the ability to keep the peace” and is “suffering diminished personal safety every time” he goes to church.

That argument was good enough for the judge who ruled accordingly.

“The court reiterates that ample Supreme Court precedent addressing the individuals right to keep and bear arms — from Heller and McDonald to its June 2022 decision in [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen] — dictates that New York’s new place of worship restriction is equally unconstitutional,” Sinatra stated, according to the injunction.

“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the Status quo — not 2022 legislation on the books for nine weeks,” the judge admonished. “Legislative enactments may not eviscerate the Bill of Rights. Every day they do is one too many.”

“The nation’s history does not countenance such an incursion into the right to keep and bear arms across all places of worship across the state,” Sinatra continued. “The right to self-defense is no less important and no less recognized at these places.”

In October, Sinatra issued a temporary hold on the law, noting, “In Bruen, the Court made the Second Amendment test crystal clear: regulations in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. … New York fails that test. The State’s exclusion is, instead, inconsistent with the Nation’s historical traditions.”

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. vs. Bruen that restrictions the stated instituted on carrying concealed firearms violated Americans’ Second and 14th Amendment rights, according to The Daily Wire.

The case dealt with a 1911 New York state law that centered on the right to a concealed carry permit based on “good moral character” and “proper cause.” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion on the case for the Supreme Court and took issue with the “proper cause” part of the law, which he contended unlawfully forces New Yorkers to demonstrate “a special need for self-defense.”

“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need,” he pointed out. “That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.”

“New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” Thomas surmised.

Source: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, BizPacReview.com