Illinois gun restrictions unfairly target foster parents, lawsuit claims

[Grand Torino]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/07/14/illinois-gun-restrictions-unfairly-target-foster-parents-lawsuit-claims.html

Kenneth and Colleen Shults want to permanently welcome a foster child into their Fairmount, Ill., family, but claim in a federal suit filed this week they are being forced to surrender their Second Amendment rights to do it.

Already parents of three, the couple is in the process of formally adopting a daughter through the state foster care system and is fighting Department of Children and Family Services rules they say severely restrict their gun rights. The couple charges that the firearm restrictions aimed at safeguarding foster children violate their constitutional rights and threaten their ability to keep their family safe.

Prospective Illinois foster parents must either certify that there are no firearms in their home or complete a form called the Foster Family Firearms Arrangement. That document requires a list of all guns and ammunition in the home and locations where they are stored. Would-be foster parents also must certify the guns have trigger locks and are stored unloaded, separate from ammunition and in locked containers accessible only with a key kept off the premises or on the owner’s person.

The rules can be enforced by involuntary home inspections, according to the lawsuit.

The Shultses claim to have a legitimate need for the protection afforded by an accessible, loaded gun. Colleen, a nurse at the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Danville Correctional Center, was warned in March by her employer that prisoners were seeking home addresses of prison staff, including correctional officers and nurses. The letter warned that she and other prison employees should take unspecified precautions.

The Shultses have complied with the state policy so far, but now believe they need guns at the ready “for self-defense and defense of family.”

“This lawsuit is important not just for foster families in Illinois, but all across the nation,” said Gottlieb. “What we are challenging is the denial of the fundamental right to defend yourself and your family.”

Read more.

[RED333]

Well I will say it is the rules, if you want to play you will have to go by the rules.

That said it is a shame that a good family cant take care of a child like this.