DOJ Threatens to Sue Montgomery County Over Gun Ban at Houses of Worship, Synagogue Sues First

The Montgomery County Council passed Expedited Bill 23-26 on July 21, 2026. County Executive Marc Elrich signed it Monday, July 27. Three days later, the county had a federal lawsuit and a DOJ ultimatum on its desk.

The law bans carrying firearms "in or within 100 yards of a place of public assembly." That covers houses of worship, schools, parks, libraries, hospitals and government buildings. Paid security guards are exempt. Volunteers and private citizens are not, according to the complaint filed against the county.

The Silver Spring Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue, filed suit in federal court on Thursday, July 30. The plaintiffs are the synagogue and Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro, a Georgetown University Law Center student who also serves on the congregation's security committee. They named County Executive Elrich, Police Chief Marc Yamada and State's Attorney John McCarthy as defendants, according to JNS.

The synagogue's security team isn't hypothetical. It was formed after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the complaint states. The congregation points to a specific October 2024 incident where a visibly Jewish congregant was attacked outside the building, plus an attempted unauthorized entry on June 9, 2026.

"I serve on the security committee of my synagogue, and it is important that we be able to protect ourselves," Shapiro told JNS. "Especially since Oct. 7, but as recent as last month, we've faced threats. This law makes it impossible to be prepared."

Shapiro also raised a practical problem with the 100-yard buffer that has nothing to do with worship services. "In order for me to get from my house to the synagogue at which I usually daven, I pass within 100 yards of two public schools, one private school, two parks and three other houses of worship," he told JNS. Under the ordinance as written, that's a law-abiding man rendered a criminal on his own walk to prayer.

Shapiro didn't hold back on the county's motives either, calling the bill "ill-conceived" and "designed to score points in an election year, even though the County Council and executive know it is going to be struck down by the courts." He said Jewish community members warned the council directly and "it fell on deaf ears."

DOJ Steps In

R. Jonah Geissler, deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, sent a letter Thursday, July 30, to Elrich, the county attorney, the police chief and the sheriff. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon's division authored the warning, according to Breitbart News.

"History teaches us that houses of worship are vulnerable to armed attacks and congregants are particularly in need of the ability to defend themselves," the letter states. "By disarming religious congregants during worship, Montgomery County infringes on such congregants' ability to defend against such attacks."

The DOJ gave the county until noon Friday, July 31, 2026, to confirm in writing that it will not enforce the ordinance at places of worship. Geissler's letter warns that without that confirmation, "we will file a lawsuit without further notice."

Dhillon's letter recognizes one legitimate carve-out: if a house of worship's own property owner explicitly bans firearms on the premises, that's the property owner's call, not the county's. A church or synagogue that wants to be gun-free on its own property is exercising its own rights. A county mandating it for everyone is a different matter entirely.

Attorney Jacob Huebert, who represents the synagogue, welcomed the federal intervention. "It's great to see the Justice Department standing up for constitutional rights," he told JNS. "We'll be happy to fight alongside them to end Montgomery County's indefensible disarmament of religious people."

Jack Leeb, a police psychologist who runs gun safety courses for the local Jewish community, told JNS there is "no reason whatsoever to restrict the ability to carry a firearm, especially in houses of worship, other than to control the population." That's a strong claim about motive, and it's Leeb's opinion, not an established fact. But it reflects a common-sense reality: Montgomery County hasn't offered a public safety rationale that explains why an armed volunteer congregant, vetted by their own synagogue's security committee, is more dangerous than an unarmed one facing an active shooter.

The county's side of this hasn't been fully aired in these reports. Neither Elrich's office nor the County Council has been quoted defending the ordinance's specifics, why volunteers are excluded but paid guards aren't, or what evidence, if any, supports the theory that banning lawful carry near assembly places reduces violence. That's a real gap. A county weighing crowd-control concerns at large public gatherings is not automatically acting in bad faith just because critics call it political theater, and reasonable people can disagree about where lines should be drawn between paid, trained security and armed civilians. But without the county's stated rationale on the record, that side of the argument is missing from this dispute entirely.

The immediate question is what Montgomery County does by noon Friday. If it doesn't back down, the DOJ has committed to filing suit "without further notice." That would put the county fighting two federal lawsuits over the same law within a single week of it taking effect.