The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take on the issue of whether it’s unconstitutional to ban guns from places of worship, so gun rights activists in Georgia said they still hope to remove the prohibition through legislation this year.
Consequently, a split remains among the lower courts: the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that covers Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the 11th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals that includes Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Judges in the 3rd Circuit said it was unconstitutional to discriminate against any “religiously motivated conduct” in instances where it is not specific. The 11th Circuit upheld Georgia’s law last summer, writing that an individual right to carry a gun into a place of worship does not trump a private property owner’s right to “exclusively control who is allowed on the premises and under what circumstances.”
The gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.org had asked the justices to look at the 11th Circuit’s decision affirming Georgia’s ban on places of worship — churches, mosques and synagogues.
GeorgiaCarry.org Vice President John Monroe was disappointed but not surprised. “They take only about 1 percent of the cases,” he said. “We are still hoping to be able to effect some legislation.”
At least two bills have been filed for the upcoming state legislative session — by a newly elected member of the House — to remove restrictions on where guns can be carried. One proposes lifting the ban on places of worship and the ban on college campuses.
“I think there will be more bills,” Monroe said.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected GeorgiaCarry.org’s contention that worshippers had the constitutional right to arm themselves for their own protection.
The initial suit was filed after the Legislature in 2010 replaced the prohibition against guns at “public gatherings” with a list of specific kinds of places where people cannot carry their firearms. One of those was places of worship.
GeorgiaCarry.org and a Thomaston minister said the prohibition interferes with the free exercise of religion promised in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that worshippers had a Second Amendment right to arm themselves for their own protection.
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