Firearm Instructor Home Night-Raided Over Facebook Photo of His Son Holding a Gun
In this age of gun control panic leading legislators to propose ineffectual and pointless restrictions of certain disfavored weapons, one firearms instructor and his family in New Jersey have learned a valuable lesson: don't offend the sensibilities of your neighbors when it comes to this contentious issue.
From a Fox Radio News report:
New Jersey police and Dept. of Children and Families officials raided the home of a firearms instructor and demanded to see his guns after he posted a Facebook photo of his 11-year-old son holding a rifle.
"Someone called family services about the photo," said Evan Nappen, an attorney representing Shawn Moore. "It led to an incredible, heavy-handed raid on his house. They wanted to see his gun safe, his guns and search his house. They even threatened to take his kids."
Moore was not arrested or charged.
This is the Facebook photo that led to the police raid….
"The department has a child abuse hotline for the state of New Jersey and anybody can make a call to that hotline," spokesperson Kristen Brown said. "We are required to follow up on every single allegation that comes into the central registry."
Moore, of Carneys Point, is a certified firearms instructor for the National Rifle Association, an NRA range safety officer and a New Jersey hunter education instructor.
He recently posted a photograph of his son wearing camouflage and holding his new .22 rifle. The child has a New Jersey hunting license and recently passed the state's hunter safety course….
The family's trouble started Saturday night when Moore received an urgent text message from his wife. The Carneys Point Police Dept. and the New Jersey Dept. of Children and Families had raided their home.
Moore immediately called Nappen and rushed home to find officers demanding to check his guns and his gun safe….
With his attorney on speaker phone, Moore instructed the officers to leave his home.
"I was told I was being unreasonable and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn't open my safe," Moore wrote on the Delaware Open Carry website. "They told me they were going to get a search warrant. I told them to go ahead."….
The attorney said police eventually left and never returned.
"He has a Fourth Amendment right and he's not going to give up his Fourth Amendment right or his Second Amendment right," he said. "They didn't have a warrant – so see you later."
The government is, as usual, sure it did the right thing, and what are you gonna do about it anyway?
Brown told Fox News that it's "prudent and wise to protect children."
"In many cases we may follow up on something and we don't find any problems and the case is closed," she said.
But the person who reported the false allegations of abuse cannot be held liable, she noted.
"You can't be prosecuted for making an allegation of child abuse –even if it's false," she said.