State lawmakers opted not to move forward this year with legislation that would have required prospective handgun buyers to undergo firearm safety training and secure a permit.
The proposal stalled before it could reach the House floor, in large part because of its unexpected $26 million price tag over the next three years — funding needed to create the permit program and subsidize training classes for low-income Delawareans, among other costs.
Bill sponsor Sen. Elizabeth Lockman says the projected cost of the legislation left backers searching for ways to scale back some expenses or find room in a future budget. Lockman also noted that the Department of Safety and Homeland Security's difficulties hiring staff to launch the state-level background check system approved by lawmakers last year — known as FTAP — signaled that introducing an even more rigorous permitting process could face similar delays.
“One of the amendments that we made pretty quickly was to adjust the timeline for implementation," she said. "We had wanted an ambitious 6-month timeline, and one of the things we did was extend that to 18 months and talk about how it would be difficult to staff up quickly.”
Both FTAP and the handgun permitting program would rely on more in-depth background checks than the federal background check system currently used for gun sales, though the handgun permit process would also require that prospective buyers provide a fingerprint. Lockman says it is still unclear how much the two background check processes would overlap.
Opponents, including Delaware Sportsmen's Association President Jeff Hague, argue the bill’s goals – such as creating additional safeguards against straw purchasing – could be accomplished by the FTAP program alone.
"[FTAP] is fully funded, but it has not been implemented," he said. "When it’s implemented, some of the concerns that the sponsors of permit-to-purchase have may go away.”
Meanwhile, Hague notes that handgun sales appear to have increased in Delaware while the legislation was under consideration.
"It's an inverse relationship," he said. "The more restrictive laws get passed, the more people decide they want to exercise their right to bear arms before someone takes it away."
After the end of this year's legislative session on Friday, Attorney General Kathy Jennings pledged to continue pursuing the bill in January.
"We have assurances that the Governor's office is going to make this a priority as well," Lockman said. "We are all on the same page — more than we were in January — that we want to find the right path to make this work."
