State Court Upheld the 100-Yard Ban. The DOJ Says the Second Amendment Says Otherwise, and Its Deadline Has Expired

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

SILVER SPRING, MD — The U.S. Department of Justice gave Montgomery County, Maryland, until noon Friday to confirm in writing that it will not enforce its new ban on firearms in places of worship, or face a federal lawsuit without further notice. That deadline has now come and gone, and there is no public word on whether the county sent the confirmation or whether the Justice Department has filed. The demand came in a July 30, 2026 letter from R. Jonah Geissler, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, addressed to County Executive Marc Elrich, County Attorney John Markovs, Police Chief Marc Yamada, and Sheriff Maxwell Uy.

The letter targets Expedited Bill No. 23-26, which the county council passed on July 21, 2026, and Elrich signed on July 27. As an expedited bill, it took effect immediately. The ordinance generally prohibits possession of firearms in or within 100 yards of a place of public worship, and it applies even to people who hold a valid Maryland carry permit and who have the express permission of the property owner to be armed inside the building. That last part is what the Justice Department fixed on. This is not a fight over a business owner posting a no-guns sign. It is the county overriding a house of worship that wants armed congregants on its own property.

The county’s 100-yard ordinance around places of public assembly has already been through Maryland’s courts. In Engage Armament LLC v. Montgomery County, the Maryland high court’s opinion holds that the county did not exceed its authority under Criminal Law § 4-209(b)(1)(iii) when it regulated firearms in or within 100 yards of parks, places of worship, schools, libraries, courthouses, and similar places of public assembly. The same opinion holds the county went too far in reaching hospitals, community health centers, childcare facilities, government buildings, and mere gatherings of people. That opinion is a state-law ruling about the county’s power under Maryland statute. The Justice Department’s letter is a federal constitutional argument, and it points the other way.

Geissler’s letter argues the ordinance violates the Second Amendment. It leans on New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, which recognized the right to carry a firearm for self-defense outside the home, and on Wolford v. Lopez, in which the letter says the Supreme Court last month struck down Hawaii’s law banning carry onto private property held open to the public without the owner’s express consent. On that reasoning, the letter states, a ban on firearms in a place of worship even with the owner’s express permission fails Bruen’s history-and-tradition test because the nation has no tradition of banning firearms in places of worship.

The letter makes a second argument under the First Amendment. It cites Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah for the rule that government may not single out religious conduct for burdens it does not impose on comparable secular activity. The ordinance, the letter says, sweeps “place of worship” into its definition of “place of public assembly” while leaving out comparable secular gatherings at community centers, homes, and other locations. Finally, the letter invokes 34 U.S.C. § 12601(a), which makes it unlawful for a governmental authority to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their constitutional rights, and it warns that enforcing the ban in places of worship would violate that statute.

The core of the letter is a line the Justice Department chose to state plainly: “History teaches us that houses of worship are vulnerable to armed attacks and congregants are particularly in need of the ability to defend themselves. By disarming religious congregants during worship, Montgomery County infringes on such congregants’ ability to defend against such attacks.” That is the whole argument compressed into two sentences. The people the ordinance disarms are the ones sitting inside the target.

The letter set a hard deadline. It demanded written confirmation by email no later than noon EDT on July 31, 2026, that the county will not enforce the ordinance’s firearm ban in places of worship absent the property owner’s own explicit prohibition. If that assurance did not arrive, the letter states, “we will file a lawsuit without further notice.” As of this writing, the deadline has passed. Neither the county nor the Justice Department has said publicly whether that email was sent, and no DOJ filing has been announced. Either the county stood down in writing, or a federal complaint is coming. There is no third option the letter leaves open.

The county is already in federal court over this ordinance either way. On July 30, 2026, the same day the DOJ letter went out, the Silver Spring Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue, and Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Case No. 8:26-cv-02962, against Montgomery County, Elrich, Yamada, and State’s Attorney John McCarthy. The complaint brings four claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: free exercise of religion, the Establishment Clause, the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and equal protection. Attorneys with the New Civil Liberties Alliance represent the synagogue; Rabbi Shapiro is representing himself. The complaint calls the county’s ban more restrictive than the Hawaii law the Supreme Court struck down in Wolford, and it situates the ordinance against a string of recent attacks on Jewish targets, including the shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum close to home.

The facts in the complaint show what the ordinance actually shuts down. After the October 7 attacks, the synagogue organized a volunteer armed Security Team drawn from its own members, many of them former military, every one of them licensed through Maryland’s carry-permit process. The team trains together at least quarterly and members train individually on a biweekly basis. The complaint says the synagogue has faced real threats: a visibly Jewish member was attacked just outside the building in October 2024, and in the early morning of June 9, 2026, someone tried and failed to get inside. The building is in use from roughly 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily, with six weekday prayer services, and the complaint says hiring paid armed guards for those hours, which the ordinance would still allow, would be prohibitively expensive. The Ban makes the volunteer team illegal overnight.

Rabbi Shapiro’s claim shows the reach of the 100-yard rule. He holds a Maryland Wear and Carry permit and, per his religious obligations, walks to synagogue on the Sabbath and holidays. The complaint says the only path between his home and his synagogue passes within 100 yards of two public schools, two private schools, two parks, and three other houses of worship, every one a “place of public assembly” under the ordinance. Under the ban he cannot legally carry a firearm on his own walk to prayer. The complaint also grounds the claims in religious law itself, asserting that Jewish law requires Jews to provide for their own and communal self-defense personally rather than outsource it, which is why the free exercise claim is not an add-on. The ordinance does not just burden carry rights; the plaintiffs say it forces them to choose between communal worship and a religious duty of self-defense.

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Here is the simplest way I can put it. There are two separate questions in play. The first question is whether Maryland law gives the county the power to pass this kind of ordinance. The state court said yes. The second question is whether the U.S. Constitution allows it. That question is still open, and both the Justice Department and the synagogue say the answer is no. Winning the first question does not win the second. The county can have every bit of authority Maryland law gives it and still lose in federal court. For an armed Maryland resident, the practical stakes are direct. A valid Maryland carry permit means little at the synagogue door if a county ordinance strips it away the moment you cross the property line, even with the congregation’s blessing.

I will continue tracking whether Montgomery County answered the Justice Department’s demand, whether DOJ files as promised, and the Silver Spring Jewish Center’s suit as it moves through the federal court in Maryland.

Read the original story: State Court Upheld the 100-Yard Ban. The DOJ Says the Second Amendment Says Otherwise, and Its Deadline Has Expired