A Wisconsin appeals court ruled that forcing foster parents to store their firearms unloaded as a licensing condition violates both the federal and state constitutions, a five-year fight that exposed a county's shifting rules and bureaucratic gamesmanship.
Wisconsin's Court of Appeals District III handed down its decision on July 31 in Lafferty v. Pertl, siding with Brian and Katie Lafferty, a couple who had fought since roughly 2021 to keep their Second Amendment rights intact while opening their home to children in need. The court did not hold back about what the Laffertys had endured from government agencies along the way.
The ruling struck Washington County's requirement that foster parents keep all firearms unloaded as a condition of obtaining a foster care license. Beyond that single mandate, the court rebuked the county for additional gun control rules and wiped some off the books entirely. Washington County's Human Services Department and the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families both drew sharp criticism from the three-judge panel for how they handled the case over half a decade.
The court's own language left little room for charitable interpretation of the agencies' conduct. In its opinion, the panel wrote:
"The Laffertys have been seeking to exercise their state and federal constitutional rights for five years while the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) and Washington County Human Services Department (the County) have dithered, moved the goal posts, and changed the rules of the game every step along the way."
That sentence captures the core frustration at the heart of the case. The Laffertys did not challenge a static policy. They challenged a target that kept moving. Washington County amended and removed some of its own gun control rules while the litigation was still underway, and then failed to promptly tell the appeals court it had done so.
The court scolded the county for that tardiness. The Washington Times reported that the panel criticized Washington County for "playing games with the courts over the changes." When a government body rewrites its own rules mid-case and neglects to inform the judges reviewing those rules, the word "games" fits.
Before reaching the appeals court, the Laffertys lost at the trial level. A circuit court granted summary judgment against them on procedural grounds, meaning the lower court never reached the constitutional merits of their claim. The couple appealed.
The appeals court did reach the merits. And it found that requiring foster parents to store firearms unloaded as a condition of licensure violates constitutional protections under both the U.S. Constitution and Wisconsin's own state constitution. The decision did not merely question the policy's wisdom. It declared the mandate unconstitutional.
That distinction matters. A policy struck on constitutional grounds carries more weight than one reversed on a technicality. It signals to other counties and state agencies that similar mandates face the same legal exposure. The ruling lands in a period when federal courts at every level are re-examining firearms restrictions in light of recent Supreme Court precedent.
Washington County's approach rested on a premise that many foster care agencies across the country share: that the mere presence of a loaded firearm in a home disqualifies that home from caring for children. The Laffertys' case tested whether a county can condition a foster care license on the surrender of a constitutional right.
The appeals court answered no. Foster parents do not forfeit the Second Amendment when they volunteer to take in children the state cannot otherwise house. The ruling draws a line that bureaucrats in Wisconsin, and potentially elsewhere, will have to respect.
Conservative legal victories on firearms have accelerated in recent years. A federal appeals court struck down New Jersey's bans on AR-15s and standard-capacity magazines as unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has issued a string of decisions reinforcing individual gun rights. The Wisconsin ruling fits squarely in that current.
The court's opinion laid bare a pattern that gun owners and foster families will recognize: agencies impose burdens, shift their justifications when challenged, and drag proceedings out long enough to exhaust the people fighting back. The Laffertys spent five years in that cycle.
Washington County quietly dropped some of its own restrictions during litigation. That might look like a concession. But the county's failure to notify the court promptly suggests something less gracious, an attempt to moot parts of the case without conceding the constitutional point. The appeals court noticed and said so publicly.
The DCF, Wisconsin's statewide child welfare agency, did not escape criticism either. The court lumped it alongside the county as having "dithered" and "changed the rules of the game." For an agency whose mission is placing children in safe, stable homes, spending five years obstructing a couple willing to provide one is a curious use of resources.
Broader questions about government overreach in licensing and regulation continue to surface across the courts. The Supreme Court's recent willingness to check state and local authority when constitutional rights are at stake has emboldened challengers at every level.
Several details remain unclear. The full scope of which gun control rules the court erased versus those it merely criticized is not specified in available reporting. Whether Washington County or the DCF will seek further review is unknown. And the identity and role of "Pertl," the named respondent, has not been publicly detailed beyond the case caption.
What is clear is the outcome: a Wisconsin couple who wanted to care for foster children without giving up their right to keep a loaded firearm in their own home won that fight in court. It took them five years, a lost trial, and an appeal to get there.
The case also raises a practical question that state legislatures and child welfare agencies should consider honestly. There is a nationwide shortage of foster families. Policies that disqualify otherwise qualified homes over lawful gun ownership shrink the pool further. The children who need placement pay the price for that choice. Decisions like this one reflect a judiciary increasingly skeptical of government mandates that condition civic participation on the quiet surrender of constitutional rights, a trend visible in landmark rulings at the highest court as well.
Brian and Katie Lafferty asked to do something good, open their home to children who needed one. The government's answer, for five years, was that they could help only if they agreed to store their firearms in a condition that made them useless for self-defense. A court finally told the government it cannot make that deal. More courts should follow.
