Couple files suit against state over ban on guns in home daycares

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been named in a federal lawsuit filed this week challenging the agency’s firearms policy for home day cares.

Jennifer and Darin Miller have three children in their Shelbyville home as well as current Illinois firearms cards and concealed carry licenses. However, although Jennifer was licensed by IDCFS last year to run a daycare in her home, the agency has guidelines against possessing loaded handguns in their home while operating the daycare. This, argues the Millers and a trio of gun rights organizations supporting their suit, tramples their right to keep and bear arms.

“IDCFS substantially prohibits day care home licensees, and those who would be day care home licensees, from the possession of firearms for the purpose of self-defense, which violates their constitutional rights under the Second Amendment,” said Alan Gottlieb with the Second Amendment Foundation concerning the legal challenge filed Monday. The Illinois State Rifle Association and Illinois Carry are also signed on to the lawsuit in support of the Millers.

In the filing by Glen Ellyn-based attorney David Sigale, he stresses the couple has no objection that handguns be locked away when daycare children are in the home, but do take exception to the requirement they remove them from the home altogether, a requirement by the child welfare agency to keep their daycare license.

The lawsuit is not the only one filed by SAF against IDCFS. In 2016, the group filed a challenge over the state of Illinois’ prohibition on foster parents from possessing functional guns in their homes.