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In Florida this week, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is pushing for legislation to ban adoption agencies from asking if prospective parents are gun owners (read the story from the Orlando Sentinel and the AP here). Currently that question does appear on many adoption forms used in the state of Florida. This is one of those stories that seems basic enough on its surface, but that I strongly encourage people to question. We should never accept what’s told to us at face value, or we’ll be led by the person telling us, whether it’s to the left or to the right. “Question everything” is the motto here at the Unmutual Grizzly, and come to your own conclusion by thinking for yourself. That’s what makes this story so interesting to me.

The first thing we need to do is take the NRA out of the equation, because they are a highly influential special interest group with their own agenda. I’m pretty sure they’d fight for the right of Astronauts to carry firearms on the space shuttle (after all, they might have to protect themselves from space pirates). The question is whether or not adoption agencies should be able to ask, not who is trying to ban it. Asking prospective parents whether or not they own guns may seem like a prudent precaution upon initial examination, after all no one wants to think about kids and guns together, right? Surely placing a child in a home with a gun would be a horrible lapse in judgement by any adoption agency, wouldn’t it?

Not so fast. We are very quick in this country to trample people’s rights in the name of safety and security. I should first start by saying that a private business has the right to ask any questions it wants, because it’s privately funded, and therefore if the owner makes poor decisions on how to screen candidates, he will eventually go out of business because people won’t want to use his service, or they can simply take their business elsewhere. That’s the free market at work. However, Florida Adoption Agencies aren’t private businesses. They are subsidised by the State with taxpayer dollars. That changes the game quite a bit. All the prospective parents have contributed their tax dollars to help fund the adoption agency, and it is there to serve them and the orphaned children of Florida.

Gun ownership is legal in Florida (and everywhere else for that matter), so long as you follow the local laws governing it. Our feelings toward gun ownership should be irrelevant on this particular issue, because it is currently legal, and you can’t tell someone they can’t help a child in need because they are doing something that the state and federal government says is OK. I tend to think that most of the taxes we pay are used fraudulently, or at least in a manner the founding fathers never intended, but helping orphaned children find a home seems to benefit society as a whole, so I’m actually OK with it. I stop being OK with it when the adoption agency denies citizens the right to adopt strictly because they choose to exercise one of their constitutional rights. It’s a pretty sneaky form of discrimination.

“Discrimination” is a pretty strong word, and what about the safety issue? Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s a good thing for children to be around. Unfortunately the discrimination is quite visible when you examine the facts. The only case you could make for having this question on an adoption form is that having guns in the home is such an unsafe practice that there’s a good chance children will be harmed by it, regardless of its legality. When we look at the latest data from The Center for Injury Prevention and Control we see a different story. In checking the leading accidental causes of death for children ages 1-10 in 2006, we see that firearms we responsible for 33 of them (see the stats here) and ranked 12th on the list. No child death at the hands of a gun is acceptable, but only 33 deaths out of every child ages 1-10 in the entire country is a minuscule amount compared to other dangers. Auto accidents claimed 1,100 lives and fires/burns claimed 334. Obviously driving a car is a necessity in most cases and fires can’t be foreseen, so I’m not comparing them to firearms, but what about the other things that ranked higher. Drowning is the #2 killer, claiming 613 children between 1-10 in 2006. Is there a question on the adoption form about whether you own a pool, jacuzzi or have a small pond on your property? Pedestrian activities such as bike riding, skateboarding, rollerblading, or just plain walking combined to finish#4 with 213 deaths. I don’t suppose owning a bicycle would stop you from adopting a child. Accidental falls, Poisoning, suffocation, and even natural/environment hazards (like poison ivy and sunburns) claimed more lives each than firearms, but are there questions about having stairs in your home, owning household cleaning products, keeping plastic shopping bags in your home, or having a beehive on your property on the application? If there isn’t then they are discriminating against firearms owners, since those items are proven to be more dangerous to children.

Most adoption agencies do a home visit with prospective parents to check for hazards and firearms should be treated no differently. If an adoption agent sees a set of stairs without a safety gate, or a pool in the backyard with no fence around it, or a cabinet with dangerous cleaning chemicals that is low to the ground and unlocked, they’re going to say something. If they see guns out in the open, without proper safety precautions like locked cabinets, trigger locks, ammo stored separately (also locked), and so on, they should point that out as well. Gun owners don’t need to be singled-out on applications or forbidden from adopting if they own guns. After all, if the state is going to take your money for a noble cause (like child adoption) and then bar you from taking part in that noble cause because you choose to take part in another activity they endorse by taking your money (to get a firearms license), wouldn’t that amount to swift kick to the “unmentionables”. It would also amount to the government infringing on your rights, so don’t let it happen.

If you’d like to contact the NRA about this issue, click here.

If you’d like to contact the Florida Legislature about this issue, click here.

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