Couple denied foster children over gun permits

[Robert]

So its ok to be gay or lesbian to adopt but not ok to have gun permit and adopt.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/03/08/couple-denied-role-as-foster-parents-over-permits-to-carry-guns/

[Jess from VA]

Hmmmm..... so exercise of a fundamental constitutional right is a bar to foster children?

Why do so many safety fanatics gravitate to govt service?

I wonder if it's OK to be a Christian? 

[Valkjerk]

Yeah Jess, they would probably find something wrong with that.

[Rams]

Interesting that someone that has successfully passed a background check isn't trustworthy enough to foster children who needs a safe and secure home.    Some how, I must have missed the liberal pacifist boat.

[BobB]

Interesting that someone that has successfully passed a background check isn't trustworthy enough to foster children who needs a safe and secure home.    Some how, I must have missed the liberal pacifist boat.

That ship has sailed long ago and, with any luck, it will sink to the bottom of the ocean.

[WilliamRS]

could someone explain to me why this is wrong?  the state is acting as guardians for the children being placed in foster care. while  there are lots of dangers in everyday life and it is impossible to protect children from all of them, it does seem prudent for the state to limit the dangers it can while kids are in foster care.

i am not saying that a household with firearms is more dangerous than one without firearms, but there is an added and controllable risk when children are in that household that has firearms.

Many foster kids are already at risk emotionally from the factors that put them in the system in the first  place.  placing an possible unstable child in  a household with firearms is different than raising a child from birth in a household with firearms.

[Jess from VA]

It's wrong period.

Carry permit holders are, in great majority, the most responsible citizens in the county.  They can have no criminal history (beyond simple misdemeanor), spousal/child abuse history, and they are generally among the sheepdog brand of humans who have made a conscious lifetime choice to look out for themselves, their families, and all those around them.

To deny foster care simply for having a permit or firearm is ludicrous.  SOP should include a detailed home inspection, background check and interview of the adults.  They certainly have the ability to insure in a home inspection how and where firearms will be kept or stored and what the proposed safety measures will be.  Same thing would be true of a house full of mean dogs, or feces, or exposed wiring, or leaking gas lines, or bedbugs.  If it is a good safe home with good caring people who are determined to do well by the kids, then firearms alone should not disqualify them.

I have many times read horror stories of numbers of unfit humans who have undertaken foster care solely for the extra money that does not get spent on the kids at all, with abuse and neglect and malnutrition.  THAT should be what they are looking at.  If loaded firearms are laying around the house at inspection, then certainly their application should be denied. 

[Robert]

So William are you saying that the increased controllable risk should be applied to concealed carry permit adopters, because if so, I think that gays should not be allowed to adopt because of increased risk of HIV that has been documented. Not to mention the increased risk of multiple partners. This is life it has many risks some can be controlled some cant. Who gets to play God and decide what risks are really important? An 18-month-old girl survived a car crash in a frigid Utah river after being strapped in a car seat upside-down for some 14 hours before being found by a fisherman, officers said. She should have died she didn't how would you determine the risk on that? She might have done better if not strapped into a car seat, so now do we outlaw car seats? Since the odds of dying riding a bicycle are  1 in 4,147 I think we should ban bicycle riding.  

http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2013/09/29/how_common_are_child_gun_accidents_666.html

Further, while the accidental-death risk posed by guns is undoubtedly higher than the risk posed by some other optional household products (e.g. even trampolines cause very few deaths), we tolerate much higher risks in certain items, especially residential swimming pools, which account for about three-quarters of child drowning deaths. Steven Levitt famously calculated that a swimming pool on your property is 100 times more likely than a gun to kill your child by accident; make the NYT adjustment, and it's still 50 times. And swimming pools don't pose the constitutional and self-defense tradeoffs that guns do.

Pretty simple to people who think.

[czuch]

Just wait till they want total registration.
This is just the chips at the bottom of the bag.

[Xtracho]

Interesting that someone that has successfully passed a background check isn't trustworthy enough to foster children who needs a safe and secure home.    Some how, I must have missed the liberal pacifist boat.

Well said Rams. 

[Chrisj CMA]

could someone explain to me why this is wrong?  the state is acting as guardians for the children being placed in foster care. while  there are lots of dangers in everyday life and it is impossible to protect children from all of them, it does seem prudent for the state to limit the dangers it can while kids are in foster care.

i am not saying that a household with firearms is more dangerous than one without firearms, but there is an added and controllable risk when children are in that household that has firearms.

Many foster kids are already at risk emotionally from the factors that put them in the system in the first  place.  placing an possible unstable child in  a household with firearms is different than raising a child from birth in a household with firearms.

You must not know anything about owning, using, storing firearms

[WilliamRS]

It's wrong period.

Carry permit holders are, in great majority, the most responsible citizens in the county.  They can have no criminal history (beyond simple misdemeanor), spousal/child abuse history, and they are generally among the sheepdog brand of humans who have made a conscious lifetime choice to look out for themselves, their families, and all those around them.

To deny foster care simply for having a permit or firearm is ludicrous.  SOP should include a detailed home inspection, background check and interview of the adults.  They certainly have the ability to insure in a home inspection how and where firearms will be kept or stored and what the proposed safety measures will be.  Same thing would be true of a house full of mean dogs, or feces, or exposed wiring, or leaking gas lines, or bedbugs.  If it is a good safe home with good caring people who are determined to do well by the kids, then firearms alone should not disqualify them.

I have many times read horror stories of numbers of unfit humans who have undertaken foster care solely for the extra money that does not get spent on the kids at all, with abuse and neglect and malnutrition.  THAT should be what they are looking at.  If loaded firearms are laying around the house at inspection, then certainly their application should be denied. 

thank you for explaining this.

[Jess from VA]

Clearly people with small children and unruly tweens must exercise great care with loaded firearms in the house (and depending on the kids, maybe there can't be any).  Educating kids is essential, but even with good training and trust, care must still be exercised.  I never had any, but have heard/read many times that you must assume they will find anything you hide.

Nothing in my house is visible, or easily discoverable (short of the type of search people have no business doing in someone else's house), but if I had kids around here, I would have to change my O-plans.