Gun Permits Keep Couple From Becoming Foster Parents
Valerie and Brian Wilson speak out in support of a Nevada bill seeking to change a law that prohibits them from becoming foster parents because they carry and store loaded guns. Photo by Fox News.
“I really want a family,” aspiring mother Valerie Wilson implored the Nevada State Assembly Judiciary Committee last week. She was speaking in support of a bill proposed to amend a state law that now blocks her and her husband Brian from having foster children because they have permits to carry loaded firearms and keep them in their Las Vegas home. “I am really heartbroken,” she said regarding their current need to choose between a foster child and their loaded guns.
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The state Assembly Bill 167, proposed on Feb. 17 by Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, would authorize a person “lawfully in possession of a firearm or ammunition to store the firearm or ammunition on the premises of a family foster home in a locked secure storage container,” loaded. It would also allow them to carry the firearm around in a foster child’s presence. Currently, the law prohibits both scenarios.
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“It just doesn’t make sense,” Brian told Fox News about the regulation, about which he and his wife previously spoke out about at a public hearing last year. “We’re talking about law-abiding people, people who have had background checks. We’re not talking about leaving a firearm around the house.” The Wilsons add that they have had guns for years and initially got them after an attempted break-in at their home.
“Guns in Nevada are a hot topic,” Nevada Division of Child and Family Services spokesperson Chrystal Main tells Yahoo Parenting, noting that the regulations are in place for the safety and security of children in foster care. “Often they have experienced significant trauma and are at much higher rate than the rest of population to experience mental health and behavioral concerns,” she says. “These kids have high rates of depression and impulse-control disorders and other mood disorders which would make them highly reactive to situations in which a gun may be present.”
State Division of Child and Family Services deputy administrator Jill Marano weighed in against the proposed bill at the Mar. 4 hearing. She revealed that in just the last four months, there were 16 incidents involving children “in the accidental discharge of a loaded weapon,”reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which also noted that the committee took no immediate action on the bill. Any amendment to the current law will “have to take all of this into consideration,” says Main. “We’re concerned about the access of firearms to children and the safety risks that that presents to families and children.”
She does acknowledge that there is “definitely” a shortage in the number of people willing to serve as foster parents, but points out that Nevada is far from the only place currently refusing to widen the pool with parents who would tote and stock guns in the presence of foster children. “Forty three states don’t allow it,” she says.
Still, the Wilsons insist that their weapons should not be a deal breaker. “These kids are in institutionalized homes; they aren’t getting the families that they deserve,” said Valerie on Fox. “We can afford to do it, we’ve been blessed. It’s the right thing to do.”
What’s “right” is a thorny question though — not just for prospective parents but for the legislators considering changing established law as well. “Everyone at that level has the best interest of children at their hearts,” Main says of lawmakers debating the issue. “They just have different perspectives, and that’s why we have this process. Regardless, it certainly doesn’t hurt to raise the level of awareness about how we need to protect our children. And there are lots of different ways to do that.”
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