Child welfare workers and cops stormed a New Jersey gun advocate's home after an anonymous tipster reported a Facebook photo of the man's smiling, 10-year-old son holding an assault style rifle.
Now Shawn Moore, the dad, is claiming the authorities violated his rights when they threatened to take away his children as they searched his home last Friday night with no warrant.
Moore, 31, said the confrontation stemmed from an anonymous tipster who saw the photo and phoned a New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services hotline to report the image of the boy holding the gun.
“They had no warrant, no charges, nothing,” the Penns Grove, N.J. tradesman wrote Sunday on the Delaware Open Carry online forum.
Cops demanded the open his gun safe, but he refused.
“I was told I was being unreasonable and that I was acting suspicious because I wouldn’t open my safe,” Moore said in the web posting. “Told me they were gonna get a search warrant. Told ’em go ahead.”
Moore titled his post to the internet forum, “I stood my ground.”
It is unclear what the tipster actually told authorities. Police officers generally do not need search warrants if they believe a crime is in progress.
The gun was actually a .22 rifle manufactured to look like an assault weapon — and it was early 11th birthday present for Moore’s son Josh.
Moore is certified as a New Jersey hunting firearms safety instructor and his young son has a state hunting license, his lawyer told the Daily News Wednesday.
“I’ve been shooting guns since I was 5,” Josh added Wednesday on “Fox & Friends,” a morning show. “I’m a pretty good shooter and a pretty good hunter.”
The clash between gun rights and child welfare began Friday at around 9 p.m., when Moore was at a friend’s house, where he received a text message from his wife telling him police and state workers were at his home.
He called his lawyer and rushed home. The lawyer, Evan Nappen, told the News the “heavy handed” encounter violated the first, second and fourth amendments because Moore was simply exercising his free speech rights online, and his gun and privacy rights in his home.
“My client is just a blue collar, hardworking union man who wants to enjoy hunting and the outdoors with his son,” Nappen said Wednesday.
The lawyer pointed out that the controversial photo shows Josh with his finger off the trigger — a sign that he understand firearms safety.
“Anyone who knows firearm safety immediately recognizes that this boy is trained because his finger is not on the trigger,” Nappen said. “If half of Hollywood would do that, we’d be in good shape.”
Moore told Fox News the cops “wanted to run the serial numbers on all my firearms and make sure they were all registered to me” — even though New Jersey law doesn’t require gun owners to register their firearms with the state, Nappen said.
For his part, Josh said the visit by welfare workers “was seriously getting me really mad.”
The Department of Youth and Family Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The News Wednesday.
But an agency spokeswoman told Fox News Radio the agency is “required to follow up on every single allegation that comes into the central registry.”
Nappen sees a bigger issue that just the invasion of his client’s privacy.
“We have a cultural issue with guns at the moment that now changes something that would have been an innocent picture and turns it into an alarming event that requires a nighttime raid,” Nappen said.
By Erik Ortiz AND Daniel Beekman / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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