This comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers approved a law to limit where guns can be carried, including houses of worship.
More than two dozen churches across the state and a Rochester-based non-profit Christian conservative political advocacy group filed this federal lawsuit and they said they want the right to be able to protect their loved ones at church.
“Looking at it from the perspective of churches who have security teams and since Sept. 1, no house of worship is allowed to have a firearm on the premise unless it’s a paid professional security team or its retired or active law enforcement,” Rev. Jason McGuire said. “That’s not something that many congregations have.”
Now many local churches are trying to push back.
“There’s 25 churches representing 20 counties across the state of New York and so it’s a pretty good spectrum of people from all the way in Niagara County to Kings County, so it really represents a state well,” McGuire said.
McGuire is the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a non-profit Christian conservative political advocacy group named as a party on the lawsuit.
“All across the board, we’re hearing from churches in Erie County where there has recently been a just a tragic shooting out there,” McGuire said. “Churches there are concerned. We have churches all across the domination spectrum. Many churches didn’t want to come forward and go public for obvious reasons, but there is just a broad interest in this issue.”
Source: “Local churches sue New York State over gun law restrictions,” WHEC.com