New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) might want to reconsider future acts of posturing “in memory of the Holocaust” or in memory of any other trampling of rights and mass murder carried out by agents of any state in history.
It was just under two months ago that she made a grand, meaningless pageant of signing, as the government of New York website shouts, “a legislative package to honor and support Holocaust survivors in educational, cultural, and financial institutions,” even as she was threatening Holocaust survivors – and anyone else -- in New York who might DARE want to possess a firearm for defense inside a synagogue or any other house of worship.
How do we know this? We know because a group of Jewish New York-based gun owners on Thursday filed suit against her and her state apparatus in order to win back the ability to exercise their right to keep and bear arms inside a center for religious worship.
The group is called The New York State Jewish Gun Club, contains members who not only attend synagogue, but one who is the president of a Brooklyn synagogue, and, as Cam Edwards reports for Bearing Arms, they understand the machinations and vile tactics of Hochul after the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) on June 23, 2022, ruled in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc v. Bruen.
Related: NJ Gov. Signs 7 Anti-Gun Bills, Including DATA COLLECTION of Ammo Buys | MRCTV
In typical half-hearted fashion the SCOTUS majority in the Bruen case found against New York’s mandate that citizens had to prove to the government that they had “proper cause” to conceal-carry firearms outside the home. Unfortunately, the majority also allowed the state to claim that they could block such carrying of firearms in public if state politicians deemed them “sensitive areas.”
And guess what Hochul and the Democrat majority in the NY Assembly almost immediately did in response? They passed the “Concealed Carry Improvement Act” (CCIA), Orwellian legislation to create a list of “sensitive areas” that, somehow, improve the right to keep and bear arms by creating no-go zones for the exercise of the right. And houses of worship are part of that list.
The statute went into effect on September 1, and, writes Edwards:
“The blows to New York’s post-Bruen gun laws keep coming, with the latest lawsuit filed by the president of a Brooklyn synagogue as well as a worshipper (and concealed carry licensee) at another synagogue in Rockland County. The pair’s attorney, Amer Benno points out in the initial (complaint) that at a time of increasing attacks on synagogues and Jewish communities in the state, Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Democrats have perversely made it impossible for congregations to protect themselves unless they can afford to hire private security.”
The plaintiffs and their attorneys not only oppose Hochul’s threats, they worry, because of previous recorded violence against Jews
“Under the new laws rushed through the state legislature in the wake of the Bruen decision, concealed carry is banned in all houses of worship, and the religious institutions themselves have no say in the matter; something Benno argues is unconstitutional and a tragedy waiting to happen.”
They also note that the “houses of worship” term I employed above is just the start:
“In passing the CCIA, New York State has expressed that legal carry in New York is okay, but not for those who observe religious rituals and customs. This law specifically targets religious people, by threatening them with arrest and felony prosecution if they carry their firearm while engaging in religious observance. In the lawsuit, Attorney Cory Morris made it clear that the CCIA does not target criminals, but rather seeks to criminalize religious observance while legally carrying a firearm. The law also leaves ‘religious observance’ as vague and undefined, making it difficult to even understand what is prohibited by the new law.”
This is a stark reminder of who believes in respecting the natural rights of others, and who does not. Adds the New York State Jewish Gun Club:
“We filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court, Southern District of New York against New York state officials. We also filed an application for an emergency injunction to stop New York State from enforcing the aspect of the CCIA that designates places of worship or religious observation as ‘sensitive places,’ where possessing a licensed firearm is prohibited and punishable with severe criminal penalties.”
Indeed, this is more than a stark reminder of who would respect the natural rights of others and who would not.
This is a reminder that Hochul is a hypocrite, and a threat to natural rights.
As I mentioned earlier, in August, she trotted out an audience of political parasites, sycophants, and predators to sign legislation in memory of the Holocaust. I am not Jewish. My heritage is English and Irish, with all the troubles involved with those political histories. But one need not fall into any of the categories politicians use to separate humanity and play one group against another. One can stand for fundamental human rights. One can remind Hochul that Hitler seized firearms by using a gun registry created before he took power. One can remind Hochul that the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto fought back with firearms that they did not relinquish to the Nazis.
To think that she can “honor” victims of gun confiscation, of legally excused property theft, of government kidnapping, concentration camps, and extermination camps, even as she threatens Jewish survivors who want to carry arms in New York synagogues is offensive beyond words.
But these words might come close: Any person who tells you -- a peaceful individual -- that he or she intends to disarm you is a person who wants to enslave you and does not care about your life or God-given rights.
Hochul appears to be one of those people.
Related: ‘Shall Not Be Infringed’: Supreme Court Strikes Down N.Y. Concealed Carry Rule | MRCTV