I'm not shocked that Delaware is an anti-gun state. I mean, it's Delaware. This is the state that gave us Joe Biden, for crying out loud. It's just them being on brand.
But no matter how anti-gun it is, the state can't enforce laws when there's an injunction saying it can't.
Normally, this isn't really a concern. After all, everyone knows that when the courts issue an injunction, everything comes to a halt. Often, the injunction comes before the law can really do anything, so people just carry on the status quo for a time.
Regardless, Delaware faced an injunction barring the state from enforcing its law banning so-called untraceable firearms in Rigby v. Jennings in 2022. Unfortunately, the state either forgot or just decided to outright ignore the injunction.
And we know it because the Department of Justice reached out to the judge who issued said injunction to tell him there'd been an arrest.
Delaware informed the district court today in our lawsuit challenging the state's bans on self-manufacturing and possession of home-built firearms that it mistakenly prosecuted someone for violating one of the laws enjoined by our preliminary injunction: https://t.co/tU1mayKKuY pic.twitter.com/HxyS4F8dcZ
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 9, 2026
For the record, the FPC isn't going to just shrug off something like this anyway, so no matter what happened with the arrest, it was mind-boggling stupid on someone's part.
Essentially, in January of last year, a 17-year-old was arrested, charged, and the teen pled guilty to avoid incarceration for possessing an "untraceable firearm." The problem, however, was that the law he pleaded guilty to couldn't be enforced at all.
Whoops.
Unfortunately, this is the problem with injunctions over outright overturning laws. As Rigby works through the courts, the law is still on the books, and it's entirely possible for prosecutors to be completely unaware that they can't enforce a law. Should they look? Probably. Do they think of doing so in every case? Probably not.
Yes, that's a them problem, not an issue someone else should have to endure, but that's simply how it goes.
This was a plea deal, though, which means that this was also a case of a soft-on-crime prosecutor offering a sweet deal to a young criminal rather than letting him face the actual charges he was guilty of. I mean, he was a prohibited person. That charge carried at least six months in lock up, but rather than prosecute him for that, which is actually enforceable, the prosecutor just got him to agree to something that boiled down to paperwork for him.
Laziness, mixed with progressive pro-crook policies, makes a nasty combination at the best of times.
In this case, though, it involved someone being charged and essentially convicted of a crime that does not exist currently under Delaware state law.
Only in the People's Republics of the Northeastern United States would something this stupid ever happen. Then again, considering they're banning guns that can't be traced, when tracing has never actually solved a crime, that should be more than enough reason to know the stupid will never go away from most of the states up that way.
