Three gun-rights organizations filed suit against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services over its requirement that bans home day-care operators from keeping guns in their home.
The Second Amendment Foundation, Illinois State Rifle Association, and Illinois Carry filed suit against the state in support of Jennifer and Darin Miller. The couple has a home day-care license and would like to keep guns in their home for self-defense. The state, however, won't allow them to do so despite the fact that both of them have Illinois firearms owner identification cards and concealed-carry permits.
The complaint said the couple fears losing their home day care license if they were to keep a gun in their home.
"The Millers would possess and carry loaded and functional handguns for self-defense and defense of family, but refrain from doing so because they fear Jennifer’s day care home license being taken away from them by the State, and/or being prohibited from maintaining a day care home license in the future, all due to the Illinois statutes and IDCFS rules complained-of herein," the complaint reads.
It said that the Millers were willing to comply with the requirement in the state's concealed-carry law that those with home day cares could keep guns in their home so long as they're stored in a locked container while the kids they are watching are present but that they don't want to have to give up their guns to keep their business.
"However, notwithstanding the Millers' stated willingness to comply with the requirements of 430 ILCS 66/65(a)(2), the Millers are nonetheless required to abide by the requirement that they remove any and all handguns from their home in order to receive/maintain Jennifer's day care home license, regardless of Darin's and Jennifer's valid FOID cards and CCLs," the complaint said.
Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, said Illinois is violating the Millers' constitutional rights by making them choose between owning firearms and operating a home day care.
"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," Gottlieb said in a statement. "It was our lawsuit against Chicago's handgun ban that incorporated the Second Amendment to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment. It was another of our lawsuits that forced the State Legislature to adopt a concealed carry statute in Illinois. Now we're in court to make sure that the state cannot discriminate against day care operators who merely wish to exercise the rights we’ve restored in Illinois."
The Millers' lawsuit is the second recent team up between the Second Amendment Foundation and Illinois State Rifle Association to challenge an Illinois regulation in the past month. On April 5, the two groups filed suit against a new ban on most semi-automatic rifles in Deerfield, Illinois.