Delaware's New Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law: Advocacy Makes a Difference 

Delaware Governor John Carney has signed the state’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing bill into law.

Following years of consistent engagement by dedicated advocates and legislators, a purchaser licensing bill, sometimes referred to as permit-to-purchase, passed the final hurdle in Delaware and has been signed into law by Governor John Carney. When enacted, the law will require all who seek to purchase a handgun, unless they have a valid Delaware concealed carry permit, to submit fingerprints, undergo a more thorough criminal background check, and complete live firearm safety training.

Research shows that if Delaware had adopted a Handgun Purchaser Licensing law when Connecticut did in 1995, we would expect there to have been 47 fewer firearm homicides and 103 fewer firearm suicides over the first 10 years of implementation1. This legislation is an important piece of Delaware’s multi-pronged approach to gun violence prevention. 

“Delaware’s new law stands as a model for states around the country to pass policies that will save lives,” says Jen Pauliukonis, MPH ‘22, Director of Policy and Programming of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Firearm Purchaser Licensing is backed by research and takes a public health approach to combatting the epidemic of gun violence.” 

Eleven states and Washington, D.C. now have a Firearm Purchaser Licensing law in effect.

There is absolutely NO WAY that they can prove those statistics! It’s all a lie!

That is correct. What the GC activists do to try to carry their point is to cite numerous articles in which states having the lowest "gun deaths" or "gun violence" are those the most restrictive in handgun ownership and use. What they don't tell the reader is that in the statistics, gun use to save one's life or property are mixed in with the subcategories of "crime violence" or "homicide" or "aggravated assault" and thus inflate those numbers for the states that are oriented toward observing the Second Amendment and more permissive.

But this hidden lie is uncovered by examining the criminal violence statistics where violent robbery is the cause, which includes only the events in which the person is being robbed are the only ones included. In this case, the most restrictive states rise to the top of numbers of people being forcefully robbed, obviously without self-protection.

This proves that John Lott's conclusion cited in the title of his 1998 book "More Guns -- Less Crime" is proven, and the Gun Controllers' false argument is destroyed.

In the ranking by state of gun deaths caused in the course of an incident mis-attributed to only criminals is in decreasing numbers. Note that in it, including the robbery category, the violence of the District of Columbia heads the lists. In the robbery category, the most restictive states rise to the top of having the most deaths caused by robbers:

=====Crimes sorted by state (descending)=====

Violent Crime	Homicide	Rape	Robbery	Aggravated
				Assault

Dist. Columb	Dist. Columb	Alaska	Dist. Columb	Dist. Columb
New Mexico	Louisiana	Arkansas	California	New Mexico
Alaska	New Mexico	Michigan	Maryland	Alaska
Arkansas	South Carolina	Colorado	New York	Arkansas
Louisiana	Alabama	Wyoming	New Mexico	Louisiana
Tennessee	Arkansas	Utah	Washington	Tennessee
California	Missouri	Nevada	Nevada	California
Colorado	Alaska	Oklahoma	Illinois	Colorado
South Carolina	Tennessee	North Dakota	Alaska	South Carolina
Missouri	Maryland	South Dakota	Colorado	Missouri
Michigan	Georgia	Nebraska	Texas	Michigan

Nevada	North Carolina	New Mexico	Arizona	Texas
Texas	Pennsylvania	Montana	Oregon	Arizona
Arizona	Illinois	Texas	Pennsylvania	New York
New York	Mississippi	Missouri	Louisiana	Oklahoma
Oklahoma	Virginia	Idaho	Tennessee	Montana

Apologies to all. I have made a mis-statement in my Post #21 on this topic, whic was this:

In the ranking by state of gun deaths caused in the course of an incident mis-attributed to only criminals is in decreasing numbers. Note that in it, including the robbery category, the violence of the District of Columbia heads the lists. In the robbery category, the most restictive states rise to the top of having the most deaths caused by robbers:

The data were NOT about gun-involvement, which may have occurred in these crimes of force, but are not separable from the events. What is important is that restriction of personal armament of a law-abiding citizen resulted in an increase of violent crimes in those states as compared to more gun-permissive states, information which the gun-control activists omit in their appeal to deprive one of @nd Amenment rights.

The source for my table as from the reording of the data in this table:

List of U.S. states and territories by violent crime rate (click here) taken from Wikipedia, where the data in this table are from the FBI and for the year 2022.

Around 2010, I tried to get a gun license in Ct. I had to fill out a very long form, get three references, show proof of NRA training and agree to allow access to my medical records. There were other busy work too. Think the fee was $50. About a month later, the local cop called and said I was denied. He told me the chief of police said I don’t have any reason to own a gun. The cop said I could get a lawyer to appeal if I wanted. The Ct law did not require a reason to own a gun as a prerequisite. The chief of police made it up. I was so pissed, but I had one foot in moving to SC, I dropped the matter. The Del law just puts up time consuming and expensive hurdles to discourage gun ownership. I hope the NRA challenges the law as it infringes the right to bear arms.

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