Reply #23: This is not about gun haters. [View All]

[burrfoot]

This question is not used to determine if a family/individual can adopt or not. This question is asked along with questions about pools, household chemicals, and many other potential hazards. Not to screen you out if you're an owner, but to make sure that if you do have guns, you are storing them safely. Everyone who wants to adopt is asked this question because of the frequency of accidents that occur. Asking the question does not in ANY WAY imply that the owner is bad or wrong, or even that they are unsafe. It is simply a check to make sure that guns are safely secured.

I am one of the people who asks potential adoptive/foster/relative care families that question. I'm also a gun owner and CCW holder. I have personally approved multiple homes with guns, and (denied homes without them), so I know from personal experience that the gun is not the criteria by which you are judged.

If you're a gun owner and a jackass, you may be dropped. If you're a gun owner and a pool owner and your guns are locked up but you won't put a fence around your pool, you may be dropped. If you're a gun owner and you're not willing to comply with visitation and supervision requirements, you may be dropped. If you're a gun owner and there are bare wires sticking out of your walls which you have no intention to fix, you may be dropped.

But you're not dropped for being a gun owner.

This is the second thread where this has come up. Why is it such a sore spot for people? The information does not go into a database, nobody tracks it- the home study gets approved and the ppwk. goes into a file, where 99% of the time it is never looked at again.
In fact, although this isn't really a good thing, I'd bet that 95% of the time it's not even looked at in the first place- if the case worker says the home is approved, the supervisor signs off, and that's that. Of course, that may just be me being cynical.