A major Second Amendment win came out of Wisconsin last week, where the state’s Court of Appeals ruled that foster parents don’t have to give up their constitutional gun rights just to open their homes to children.
In a lengthy 119-page decision, the court sided with Brian and Katie Lafferty, a Washington County couple who spent nearly five years fighting Wisconsin’s firearm rules for foster parents.
Here’s what happened
Back in 2020, the couple was told they had to follow several new gun rules if they wanted to renew their foster care license.
Those rules required them to:
- Keep every firearm unloaded.
- Lock firearms away from foster children.
- Store ammunition separately.
- Tell the state what firearms they owned and where they were stored.
- Stop carrying a concealed handgun around foster children, even though they had a valid concealed carry license.
The Laffertys argued those requirements violated both the U.S. Constitution and Wisconsin’s own constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
The state changed the rules but the court kept going
As the lawsuit worked its way through the courts, Wisconsin quietly rewrote much of its foster parent firearm policy.
The state dropped the concealed carry ban and relaxed some of the storage requirements, arguing those changes made much of the lawsuit moot.
The appeals court agreed that some issues had disappeared because the rules changed.
But not all of them.
The biggest takeaway
The court’s most significant ruling centered on one remaining requirement: forcing foster parents to keep every firearm unloaded.
The judges struck that requirement down, holding that Wisconsin cannot require foster parents to surrender their constitutional right to have a usable firearm for self-defense inside their own home as a condition of receiving a foster care license.
In other words, the state can’t tell someone:
“You can foster children—but only if you give up part of your Second Amendment rights.
“You didn’t waive your rights”
One of the state’s biggest arguments was that the Laffertys voluntarily agreed to these conditions when they chose to become foster parents.
The court rejected that argument.
The judges found the couple never voluntarily gave up their constitutional rights. Instead, they signed the paperwork under protest while simultaneously challenging the rules in court.
That’s not the same thing as waiving a constitutional right, the court said.
The firearm disclosure rule also took a hit
The court also ruled Wisconsin went too far by demanding detailed information about the couple’s firearms.
Officials wanted the Laffertys to identify every firearm they owned—and in some cases had owned previously—including where each gun and its ammunition were stored.
The appeals court called those disclosure demands overly broad and impermissible.
What the ruling doesn’t do
The decision does not eliminate every firearm safety rule for foster parents.
Wisconsin can still require guns to be secured so foster children can’t easily access them. The state had already updated its rules to allow licensed foster parents to carry concealed handguns while around foster children, provided they remain under the adult’s control.
What the court said the state cannot do is require firearms to be unloaded as a blanket condition for becoming—or remaining—a foster parent.
Why it matters
The ruling reaches beyond foster care.
At its core, the decision says government agencies generally can’t force people to choose between receiving a government benefit and exercising a constitutional right.
The judges repeatedly emphasized that constitutional rights don’t disappear simply because someone volunteers to serve the public in another role.
The case now heads back to the lower court with instructions consistent with the appeals court’s ruling, unless Wisconsin seeks further review before the state Supreme Court.
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