A gun control bill filed in the State Senate this week promises to be a bone of contention as the 153rd Delaware General Assembly speeds toward the conclusion of the session on June 30th.
Senate Bill 300, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem David Sokola (D-Newark), would require anyone engaging in the sale or transfer of guns, including pawnbrokers and Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs), to obtain a new state firearms dealer license.
The bill would impose a long list of requirements on dealers, including mandatory training, the installation of video surveillance systems to capture the identities of buyers and sellers, and the maintenance of a book or database containing the names and addresses of buyers, the firearms they purchased, and their serial numbers.
Dealers would be required to make periodic reports on inventory, sales, and transfers to state agencies. They would also be mandated to back up their video and sales data and make it available for inspection by the Delaware State Police. Law enforcement agencies and the courts would be able to access the information to support investigations and prosecutions.
Under the legislation, the State Police would be charged with drafting regulations on the display and storage of guns and ammunition, security and video surveillance system specifications, and criteria for installing any required secure rooms, safes, locking devices, and physical barriers.
The bill also calls for licensing fees to be set on a sliding scale, not only linked to the number of transactions a dealer performs annually, but also so that the fees collectively generate enough revenue to administer the new law.
In a statement sent to members of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association (DSSA), group President Jeff Hague said the proposal was an attack on the state constitutional right of all Delawareans to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes. The goal of the bill’s sponsors “is to drive every FFL out of Delaware so that you cannot lawfully purchase a gun and to register every firearm purchase,” he wrote.
Mr. Hague said the bill is intentionally structured to place onerous financial obligations on firearms dealers, mandates that he said could cost some dealers tens of thousands of dollars.
SB 300 is the latest in a trend of legal restrictions on the sale and possession of firearms. In recent years, Delaware’s Democratic lawmakers have passed new laws banning targeted models of semi-automatic firearms, prohibiting the sale or possession of firearm magazines with capacities of more than 17 rounds, raising the legal age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21, and requiring citizens to obtain a state permit to purchase a handgun. All four of those statutes are being challenged in court.
The backers of SB 300 cite a study published in the American Journal of Public Health as partial justification for their sweeping proposal. The analysis, examining 20 years of data, found that state licensing requirements and laws requiring or allowing inspections or audits of firearm dealers were independently associated with significantly lower firearm homicide rates.
However, a study by Delaware’s Criminal Justice Council Statistical Analysis Center (Delaware Shootings 2020 – An Analysis of Incidents, Suspects, and Victims, released in December 2021), revealed that gun violence in the First State is mainly criminal-on-criminal violence. “More than 86% of victims and more than 90% of identified suspects had criminal histories in Delaware,” the report concluded. “Of those with a Delaware arrest history, 80% of victims and 87% of identified suspects had at least one felony arrest. Most victims and identified suspects were juveniles at the time of their first Delaware arrest (81% for each group).”
Senate Bill 300 has been under development for some time. An earlier, similar version of the measure, obtained and publicly shared by the DSSA, was written more than four months ago.
Sen. Sokola, who will leave office in November, has been a leading proponent of firearms control throughout his tenure in the Senate. Newark-area Democratic State Rep. Mara Gorman is the prime House sponsor of the bill and is a candidate to replace Sokola in the 8th Senate District.
