A landmark Supreme Court ruling June 28 that said possessing a handgun is a constitutional right is expected to unleash a wave of new lawsuits, including challenges to state laws that forbid carrying concealed weapons in church.
Two years after ruling the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own guns for protection while striking down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, the high court voted 5–4 to overturn lower-court rulings that had upheld similar prohibitions on gun ownership in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill., as constitutional.
The court rejected arguments by the cities that the Second Amendment applies only to the federal government, holding the constitutional right to bear and keep arms “fully applicable to the states.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling striking down laws enacted to protect residents from “the loss of property and injury or death from firearms” does not mean that state and local governments cannot regulate firearms in ways like prohibiting gun ownership by felons and the mentally ill.
Alito did, however, recognize gun ownership as a fundamental right, rejecting arguments by gun-control supporters that the Second Amendment’s primary intent was to prevent the national government from disarming a citizens’ militia.
John Monroe, attorney for the gun-rights group GeorgiaCarry.org, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution his group would look for “the lowest-hanging fruit” — provisions most vulnerable to attack — in a gun bill signed into law June 8 by Gov. Sonny Perdue. The new Georgia law lists specific places where guns are prohibited. They include churches, temples and mosques.
Currently 48 states allow citizens to carry concealed weapons either with or without a permit, but most don’t allow guns in places where large crowds or children are gathered or in “sensitive” locations like bars, government buildings and sporting events.
Alabama’s firearms law does not specifically mention churches, but it says “a license to carry concealed firearms does not authorize any person to carry a concealed firearm into, but not limited to, the following places: any airport, courthouse or criminal justice building; any public gatherings such as sporting events, political events, parades, etc.”
Nine states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming — specifically bar concealed-weapon permit owners from carrying their weapons into a church or other house of worship.
South Carolina prohibits guns in a “church or other established religious sanctuary” unless permission is obtained from the appropriate church official or governing body.
In Utah, people who get licenses to carry concealed weapons can carry them in a church unless a “No Guns” notice is posted at the door or the church registers with the state as a no-guns site.
Virginia prohibits taking a firearm to a place of worship “without good and sufficient reason.”
While controversial, rare, but high-profile, incidents have prompted some state lawmakers to view guns in church as a necessary evil for self-defense against deranged attackers. They include a 2007 shooting that killed two and injured three at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo.; a July 2008 attack by a gunman who killed two and wounded six at a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tenn.; and the murder of a Southern Baptist preacher shot down in his pulpit in Maryville, Ill., during a worship service in 2009. (ABP)
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