No guns for foster parents?
Date: Jul 20, 2007 9:04 AM
From today’s (Friday’s) Oregonian…

Foster parent gun rules shot down
Second Amendment – Oregon’s child welfare agency, facing an outcry and a
ruling, pulls back
Friday, July 20, 2007
MICHELLE COLE
The Oregonian

SALEM — Oregon’s child welfare agency did not anticipate the firestorm it
would create when it issued new rules regulating guns in state-certified
foster homes.

Now the agency is backtracking. The National Rifle Association is on
alert. And the Oregon Legislature is likely to get involved in the
politically volatile matter of balancing an individual’s right to have a
gun vs. the state’s need to protect its most vulnerable children.

For years, the state Department of Human Services has required foster
parents to store firearms unloaded and ammunition locked away in a
separate place. It also prohibited having a loaded gun while transporting
a foster child in a car.

This year, the agency decided to do away with an exception for people with
concealed-weapons permits. And that’s when the trouble started.

Anyone who has attended a gun show knows that guns are part of Oregon’s
Western culture. An estimated 95,000 Oregonians hold concealed-weapons
permits, according to the Oregon State Police. And last year, the state
ran instant background checks on 145,774 people seeking to buy firearms at
a gun show or from federally licensed dealers. That number does not
capture gun sales between private parties.

“The right to bear arms is an equal right to the freedom of speech and
religion. If we allow one right to be taken away, it is only a matter of
time before the next one goes,” says Talia Heath, a former foster mom who
lives in Canby.

Heath, 29, says she and her husband, Aaron, spent many hours in training
before becoming state-certified foster parents. They completed paperwork
and shared everything about their personal lives with child-welfare
workers, including the fact that each has a permit to carry a concealed
weapon.

The couple cared for four boys — ranging from a newborn to an 8-year-old
– from March 2006 through January 2007.

But then the state issued the new firearms regulations.

Rather than abide, the Heaths did not renew their state foster-parent
certification. “Being forced to choose between fostering children and
defending my constitutional rights is a horrible position to be in and one
I have considered long and hard,” Talia Heath wrote to the agency.

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, would
defend that point of view. “It’s flawed logic,” he says, “to
think that if
you’re a hunter or a person who has applied for a concealed carry permit
to defend yourself or your loved ones, that somehow you would not be a
good parent or foster parent.”

But Steven Green, a law professor and director of the Center for the Study
of Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University, disputes the
notion that DHS gun rules represent an unconstitutional requirement.

“There’s no right to be a foster parent,” he says. “People understand
there may be certain conditions imposed on them that may affect a wide
degree of their rights.”

Still, Green suggests, the Second Amendment generates highly emotional
debate, and there has been little guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“People need to take a breath,” he says.

Oregon doesn’t have data showing how many of the 7,700 children living in
the state’s 5,309 state-certified foster homes have been injured or
endangered by a foster parent’s gun. The decision to tweak Oregon’s rules
wasn’t prompted by any particular incident, says Kevin George, DHS foster
care program manager.

“It really was just an issue of looking out for the safety of kids,”
George says.

Most states have rules regulating guns in foster homes. Until now, Oregon
was among 27 states with specific gun-safety requirements, according to
the National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency
Planning at New York’s Hunter College.

Although only a few foster parents objected to the state’s gun rules, Rep.
Jerry Krummel heard enough to declare that the rules violated state law,
federal law and “the Second Amendment rights of Oregonians.”

Armed with a legal opinion supporting his position, the Wilsonville
Republican in April called on the DHS to rescind its rules immediately.

The agency sought an opinion from the attorney general.

Krummel was right: Only the Legislature has legal authority to regulate
firearms, the AG said.

As a result, the DHS was forced to pull back. It is soliciting public
comment this summer on a revised set of safety rules that tell foster
parents they must safely store medications, have an adequate number of
smoke alarms, and supervise children around swimming pools.

It doesn’t mention guns — and won’t until the agency figures out what to
do next.

Caseworkers still have authority to make sure foster homes are safe, and
if they see guns in reach of children, they have the legitimate right to
talk to foster parents about it, George says.

At Krummel’s suggestion, the DHS is assembling a work group that includes
differing perspectives to decide Oregon’s policy regarding guns in foster
homes. Its recommendations probably will be considered by the 2009
Legislature.