The Delaware Lethal Firearms Safety Act of 2022 prohibits the manufacture, sale, offer to sell, transfer, purchase, receipt, possession, or transport of assault weapons in Delaware, subject to certain exceptions. One exception is that the Act does not prohibit the possession and transport of firearms that were lawfully possessed or purchased 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. There are also exceptions for law-enforcement and military personnel in the course of their official duties, and a limited exception for retired law-enforcement personnel. Finally, a person lawfully in possession of an assault weapon prior to the passage of this Act may lawfully transfer the weapon to a member of their family, through inheritance or otherwise. The Act directs the Department of Safety and Homeland Security to develop a procedure for issuance of a voluntary certificate of possession to show lawful possession of an assault weapon prior to the effective date of the Act. A gun owner is not required to apply for the certificate, but a certificate provides a conclusive means of proving lawful possession prior to the passage of this Act. The Department is not permitted to retain copies of issued certificates or identifying information of any applicant. The Act also adds a violation of this Act to the list of predicate crimes for possession of a weapon in a school zone.
Sponsored bills
This Act establishes a Public Education Compensation Committee for the purpose of reviewing Delaware's educator compensation structure and its ability to compete with regional school districts, Delaware's private business sector, and other governmental agencies and to develop recommendations to establish a new compensation structure for educators in Delaware. The Committee will consist of 13 members, including the Secretary of the Department of Education, the Controller General, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Executive Director of the Delaware State Education Association, the Executive Director of the Delaware Association of School Administrators, an educator, two school financial officers, one school superintendent, a charter school administrator, a representative of the Office of the Governor, and the Chairs of the House and Senate Education Committees. The Act requires the Committee to present its recommendations to the Governor no later than November 15, 2023, so that the recommendations may be included in the Governor's recommended budget for fiscal year 2025.
This Act is named for Keshall “KeKe” Anderson. KeKe was an innocent bystander who was killed in a 2016 shooting involving a firearm purchased through a straw purchase. In 2019, in a lawsuit by KeKe’s family against the dealer of the firearm involved in her death, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court’s decision interpreting § 1448A of Title 11 of the Delaware Code to grant a firearm dealer full immunity from liability, even if the firearm dealer is negligent in selling a firearm to a straw purchaser. See Summers v. Cabela’s Wholesale, Inc., 2019 Del. Super. LEXIS 156 (Del. Super. 2019), aff’d, Summers v. Cabela’s Wholesale, Inc., 2019 Del. LEXIS 524 (Del. 2019). The repeal in Section 2 of this Act means victims and their families may seek relief from courts and juries instead of being denied their day in court. Section 3 of this Act provides a cause of action to enable firearm manufacturers and retail dealers to be held accountable when they knowingly or recklessly take actions that endanger the health and safety of residents of this State through the sale, manufacture, distribution, and marketing of firearm-related products.
This resolution recognizes June 2022 as National Homeownership Month in Delaware.
This Resolution commemorates the 50th anniversary of the enactment of Title IX and recognizes the impact it has had on improving equality in educational institutions and the workplace, while committing to build upon its foundation to continue to expand the protection of equal rights.
This Act provides supplementary appropriations to certain Grants-in-Aid recipients for Fiscal Year 2023. Section 1 – Government Units and Senior Centers – $28,201,165 Section 2 – One-Times and Community Agencies – $32,531,876 Section 3 – Fire Companies – $8,162,724 Section 4 – Veterans Organizations – $498,141 GRAND TOTAL – $69,393,906
This Act will allow Delaware residents two new deductions from personal income tax. The first is a deduction from taxable income of up to $1,000 for contributions to an account in a Delaware-sponsored qualified tuition program, as that term is defined under 26 U.S.C. § 529 (a “529” College Savings Plan). The second is a deduction from taxable income of up to $5,000 for contributions to an account in a Delaware-sponsored ABLE program, as that term is defined under 26 U.S.C. § 529A (a “529A” Savings Account - a special account for meeting the needs of certain individuals with disabilities). The 529 and 529A deduction is only applicable to the Delaware-sponsored plan. A transfer or rollover from another account authorized under 26 U.S.C. §§ 529 and 529A or for a change in beneficiary of any such account does not qualify for the deduction. This Act takes effect on the date the Secretary of Finance provides written notice to the Registrar of Regulations that the Division of Revenue has implemented the personal income tax release of the Internal Revenue Administration System.
This Act defines machine gun as it is defined under federal law. Defining machine gun makes clear the types of weapons prohibited under Delaware law, including an auto sear, or “glock switch”, which transforms a semiautomatic gun into a machine gun. Additionally, this Act prohibits a person from making a destructive weapon, including a machine gun. Finally, this Act makes technical corrections to conform existing law to the standards of the Delaware Legislative Drafting Manual.
This Act is the first leg of a constitutional amendment that will modernize the bail provisions within the Delaware Constitution and clarify the power of the General Assembly to define either certain offenses for which, or circumstances under which, pretrial release on bail may not be available. The current provision allowing that only “capital offenses” are not bailable first appeared in its present form in the Delaware Constitution of 1792. At that time, “capital offenses” included many more offenses than the term does today. For example, manslaughter, rape, robbery, burglary, and assaults with weapons were capital offenses, and therefore included as crimes for which a court could order pretrial detention. Thus, over time, other crimes that the Framers intended to include as those for which bail might be restricted no longer are. Today, a Delaware state court judge cannot order preventive detention in any non-capital case. Instead, the judge can only attempt to set the bail so high that a defendant cannot make it, which means that any defendant, no matter how dangerous and no matter the circumstance, can obtain release if the defendant can fund the bail—even if that defendant poses a certain flight risk or a known threat of harm to the public or to a specific person, such as a witness or victim. This Act is one step toward completing a pretrial release-detention continuum requiring specific evidence-based detention decisions that seek to maximize public safety and minimize pretrial detention for those less serious crimes for which it is not required. Upon enactment of the second leg of this constitutional amendment, § 12 of Article I of the Delaware Constitution as proposed will do all of the following: (1) Retain the express declaration of a general right to have bail set in a criminal case. (2) Provide that the crimes for which bail may be withheld are capital murder, where the evidentiary proof is positive and presumption of the accusation great, and other identified felony offenses determined by and under procedures prescribed by law where the evidentiary proof for the need of detention is clear and convincing. (3) Ensure that one condition precedent to bail being withheld in non-capital cases is a finding that no bail condition or combination of bail conditions other than detention will assure the safety of any person or the community, that the person will appear for future proceedings, or that the detention is necessary to prevent the person from obstructing or attempting to obstruct justice. This constitutional amendment, by itself, would not allow that a person charged with a non-capital crime could be held without bail. Rather, no person could be subject to a detention hearing in a non-capital case until the General Assembly revises Chapter 21 of Title 11 of the Delaware Code and the General Assembly and courts “prescribe by law” the specific felonies, circumstances, and procedures under which detention without bail may occur. With this change, though, Delaware can progress toward the type of modern bail system that has been increasingly adopted by our sister states through amendment of their state constitutions, when needed, and the development of statutory procedures that provide, in appropriate cases, pre-trial detention without bail. And this change does so by adopting the standards favorably recommended by authoritative sources including the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the National Center for State Courts, the American Bar Association, and the numerous state legislatures and court systems that have studied pretrial detention and retained or incorporated them in their own state constitutions and laws. Any legislation subsequently enacted or court procedures adopted under the passage of the second leg of this constitutional amendment would have to require individualized, fact-governed decision-making by any court considering preventive detention to pass muster under the United States and Delaware State Constitutions.
This Act updates the synthetic cannabinoids listed on Schedule I of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act by using broader language so that new synthetic cannabinoids created after the enactment of this Act fall within this definition without needing to be specifically listed. This Act requires a greater than majority vote for passage because § 28 of Article IV of the Delaware Constitution requires the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly to give jurisdiction to inferior courts and possession of a controlled substance is a misdemeanor under § 4763 of Title 16.