The idea of requiring a permit in order to purchase a firearm is really nothing more than an anti-Second Amendment of "Mother, May I?" played with constitutionally protected rights. Yet Delaware passed a law that seeks to require just that.
However, it's not going to happen without a fight.
To be fair, Delaware is far from the first state to require such a law. They're just one of the more recent ones.
Gun rights advocates in the state aren't exactly shrugging their shoulders in defeat, though. They're keeping up the fight.
Delaware residents concerned with the state's "permit to purchase" law filed a temporary restraining order in federal court seeking to halt the new gun legislation 13 days before its implementation.
The law, which is set to go into effect Nov. 16, mandates that people receive a permit and complete gun safety training before purchasing a handgun in Delaware. The law, according to one of the plaintiffs filing the legal action, is discriminatory.
"I have sued because the law is racist and stupid," said Attorney Thomas S. Neuberger, one of seven plaintiffs, in a statement, adding that the legislation harms law-abiding citizens who want to purchase a handgun for self-defense or other lawful purposes, violating their right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. "When you need a gun in an emergency, you can’t get it and you will die."
"Delaware has a long history of discriminating against Blacks in gun laws," he said. "Its history of licensing laws for possession of firearms aligns with the ugly racist history of gun-control laws in general."
In his statement, Neuberger points to Josephine Byrd who was denied a permit to have a gun by the Wilmington Housing Authority, "despite living in a very dangerous part of town and fears for their safety."
"Their refusal was an old story in the Black community," Neuberger said. "For back in Alabama in 1956, they had a similar permit to purchase a handgun law, but Dr. Martin Luther King [Jr.] could not defend his family with a gun then when their home was bombed. The Governor there denied him a permit."
Now, let's understand that there are two ways permit-to-purchase laws can, hypothetically, work.
Either they're treated like "may issue" concealed carry permits were, where not everyone gets such a permit even without a criminal offense in their background, or it's "shall issue" where everyone gets one.
If anyone who isn't a convicted felon can get one, though, what purpose does the permit have? As it stands, every purchase from a licensed dealer has a federally mandated background check conducted, so criminals aren't getting firearms. The state already requires universal background checks, so all law-abiding citizens are going through that process anyway, and a permit-to-purchase requirement isn't going to stop criminals from ignoring those universal background check requirements, now will they?
Meanwhile, if the law is "may issue," then that's a problem because now you're deciding who can exercise a constitutionally protected right in a manner outside of what's permitted by the courts. It'll be a horrific infringement on the Second Amendment because a subjective standard will decide who gets to exercise their right and who doesn't.
Delaware's, though, is really just another obstacle foisted on people in order to require them to jump through more hoops, including a mandatory training requirement, something we would never see happen with any other constitutionally protected right.
As it stands, there's an injunction against the measure, which is fine because the state wasn't ready to kick off things anyway, but the issue goes beyond that. These kinds of laws need to be overturned completely. The Supreme Court needs to handle this and declare permit-to-purchase laws unconstitutional.
But did we really expect anything good to come from the state that gave us Joe Biden?
