This Act strengthens the role and responsibilities of the Provider Advisory Board in regard to the implementation and enforcement of The Delaware Child Care Act.
This Act prohibits the manufacture, sale, offer to sell, transfer, purchase, receipt, possession, or transport of assault weapons in Delaware, subject to certain exceptions. One exception relevant to individuals is that the Act does not prohibit the possession and transport of firearms that were lawfully possessed or fully applied for before the effective date of this Act; although for these firearms there are certain restrictions relating to their possession and transport after the effective date of this Act. This Act is based on the Firearm Safety Act of 2013 (“FSA”) passed in Maryland in the wake of the tragic slaughtering of children on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The FSA’s assault weapons ban was upheld as constitutional on February 21, 2017, by the full membership of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in the case of Kolbe v. Hogan, 849 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2017). The names Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Parkland, among others, have become synonymous with tragic killing of innocent, unsuspecting Americans of all ages and backgrounds, amidst a framework of federal and state laws that have permitted the purchase of weapons designed for the battlefield — not for our schools, our theaters, our places of worship, or our homes. Safety — both for the general public, as well as members of Delaware's law-enforcement community — is the objective of this Act, as it was for the FSA. And, as with the FSA, a primary goal of this Act is to reduce the availability of assault weapons so that when a criminal acts, he or she does so with a less dangerous weapon and less severe consequences. Relying on United States Supreme Court precedent from District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), as well as the holdings of its sister circuits, the full Fourth Circuit concluded that the assault weapons banned by the FSA are not protected by the Second Amendment. The Fourth Circuit was convinced that the banned assault weapons are among those arms that are “like” “M-16 rifles” — “weapons that are most useful in military service” — which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach. The Fourth Circuit concluded that Maryland had presented extensive uncontroverted evidence demonstrating that the assault weapons outlawed by the FSA are exceptionally lethal weapons of war. The Fourth Circuit also concluded that the evidence showed the difference between the fully automatic and semiautomatic versions of military-style weapons is slight. Further evidence considered by the Fourth Circuit that motivates this Act is as follows: (1) Like their fully automatic counterparts, the banned assault weapons are firearms designed for the battlefield, for the soldier to be able to shoot a large number of rounds across a battlefield at a high rate of speed, and that their design results in a capability for lethality — more wounds, more serious, in more victims — far beyond that of other firearms in general, including other semiautomatic guns. (2) The banned assault weapons have been used disproportionately to their ownership in mass shootings and the murders of law-enforcement officers. (3) The banned assault weapons further pose a heightened risk to civilians in that rounds from assault weapons have the ability to easily penetrate most materials used in standard home construction, car doors, and similar materials, and that criminals armed with the banned assault weapons possess a “military-style advantage” in firefights with law-enforcement officers, as such weapons allow criminals to effectively engage law-enforcement officers from great distances and their rounds easily pass through the soft body armor worn by most law-enforcement officers. (4) Although self-defense is a conceivable use of the banned assault weapons, most individuals choose to keep other firearms for that purpose. (5) Prohibitions against assault weapons will promote public safety by reducing the availability of those armaments to mass shooters and other criminals, by diminishing their especial threat to law-enforcement officers, and by hindering their unintentional misuse by civilians. (6) In many situations, the semiautomatic fire of an assault weapon is more accurate and lethal than the automatic fire. Finding this evidence and these conclusions by the Fourth Circuit to be strongly persuasive of the applicable framework of constitutional rights, and firmly believing that promoting the safety of the Delaware public and Delaware law-enforcement is a paramount function of the Delaware General Assembly, Delaware legislators file this Act in the name of public safety and with adherence to core constitutional principles.
This resolution proclaims June 19, 2018 as Juneteenth Independence Day in Delaware and encourages the people of Delaware to reflect upon the significant roles and many contributions of African Americans and to celebrate this day with appropriate activities and events.
This Act prohibits a tax rate greater than 50 cents per cigar upon the sale and use of premium cigars.
This Concurrent Resolution honors the Army Warrant Officer Corps for their 100th anniversary on July 9, 2018.
This bill makes it a crime to sell, transfer, buy, receive or possess a trigger crank or bump-fire device designed to accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle, making such weapon function more like an automatic weapon. A bump stock was used by the gunman in Las Vegas in October 2017. Violation of this provision is a Class E felony.
This Act is the first leg of a Constitutional Amendment reflecting the recommendations of the Advisory Panel to the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council (DEFAC) on Potential Fiscal Controls and Budget Smoothing Mechanisms established as per House Joint Resolution 8 of the 149th General Assembly (Panel). This Act would build upon the State’s existing appropriation limit methodology by moving the Budget Reserve Account into a newly defined Budget Stabilization Fund, defining rules for deposits to and withdrawals from said Budget Stabilization Fund, and adding a check of the appropriation limit against an index comprised of relevant indicators of growth of the State’s economy. The Panel further recommended that any final adoption of the structural budget reforms included in this Act be accompanied by statutory enactment of structural reforms to the Personal Income Tax by broadening the tax base as initially recommended by the DEFAC Advisory Council of Revenues report dated May 2015 and further detailed in the Panel’s report dated June 1, 2018.
This Act removes language from the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program statute that unreasonably prevents law enforcement officials from accessing the PMP database when officials can show that the information on the database is relevant to an investigation or prosecution. This Act leaves intact the statutory right and responsibility of the Office of Controlled Substances to maintain the privacy of patients and patient information except under circumstances enumerated in the Delaware Code.
This bill moves all police officers and firefighters employed by the State and its political subdivisions under the jurisdiction of the Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Employment Relations Act. This bill allows all State merit employees to have full collective bargaining rights and protections under the jurisdiction of the Public Employment Relation Board. The purpose of this bill is to unify all police and firefighters employed by the State under the single statute which was created specifically for law enforcement personnel.
This legislation creates a benchmark for determining when a treatment or service is no longer experimental or investigational. When Medicare determines that a treatment is safe for its population, commercial insurers in Delaware may no longer deny coverage on that basis. This bill will remove inconsistencies for properly-evidenced treatments between payers.
