The U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear an appeal of Delaware’s assault weapon ban case, leaving the law intact.
The First State banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in 2022, which quickly prompted a lawsuit from the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, a gun activist group that has legally challenged several gun safety bills.
DSSA argues the legislation violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as well as Delaware’s Constitution, but the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately denied the group’s request for preliminary injunction.
The Third Circuit’s decision was different than one in a similar case within the Ninth Circuit, which led DSSA to file with the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes of a definitive answer.
The high court also declined to hear a challenge to Maryland’s handgun licensing requirements, although it did not act on two separate appeals involving challenges to Maryland’s ban on assault weapons and a large-capacity magazine ban in Rhode Island.
The Maryland handgun licensing bill is similar to Delaware’s recently passed permit-to-purchase law, which DSSA is also challenging in the U.S. District Court for Delaware.
Gun safety advocacy group Coalition for a Safer Delaware and Attorney General Kathy Jennings have both commended the court’s decision.
“Advocates in Delaware worked for years to pass an Assault Weapon Ban in Delaware, and today that law was affirmed,” said Traci Murphy, Executive Director of the Coalition for a Safer Delaware. “Today’s decision demonstrates that gun safety laws are constitutional and that there are indeed limits to the Second Amendment."
“This is a huge win for gun safety in our state and in our country. With the U.S. Supreme Court’s denials today, both in Maryland with the gun licensing law that laid the groundwork for Delaware's own permit to purchase legislation and in Delaware with the ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines, the laws of the land remain intact and fully enforceable despite increasingly frantic efforts by the gun lobby," Jennings said.
Delaware Public Media has reached out to DSSA for comments on the group’s next steps.
