Delaware’s New ‘Permit-to-Purchase’ Scheme Off to Rocky Start

Just days before Delaware’s new permit-to-purchase mandate took effect in November, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika denied a request for a preliminary injunction, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show that the state wasn’t ready to roll out the new permitting scheme in a way that wouldn’t violate the Second Amendment rights of residents wanting to purchase a handgun. 

As the Delaware Spotlight reports, many aspects of the scheme have yet to officially come online in the months since, leading to frustration on the part of both gun sellers and gun buyers. 

Since going into effect in November, statewide computer systems that are needed to enforce Delaware’s permit to purchase firearms law – which requires prospective gun owners to go through an eight-hour live firearm training course, get fingerprinted, and pass both local and federal background checks in order to obtain a permit to buy a handgun – have yet to come online. 

This delay, gun shop owners say, means they must call the Delaware State Police Bureau of Identification each time a customer comes into their store with a permit to buy a gun to confirm that it is legitimate. 

Some shop owners, like Gunnar Thompson of Lighthouse Guns & Gear in Selbyville, are calling the delay in getting the computer systems up and running evidence of the state’s unpreparedness for permit to purchase to go into effect. 

“Rather than admitting they couldn’t get it done in time, they just kind of opened up a half-assed version,” Thompson said. 

The state police say the agency is taking an average of three days to process permit-to-purchase applications, well below the 30 days its given under the permit-to-purchase law. That’s good, but the system still isn’t operating like it’s supposed to, despite the fact that Delaware had 18 months to get the new system up and running before the law took effect. 

A number of gun shop owners across the state say they take issue with the permit to purchase regulation as a violation of the Second Amendment. Beyond that, owners also say they object to the lack of communication and planning from the state about how the permitting process would function at their stores. 

Joseph Wilson, owner of Freedom Firearms in Middletown, said the first correspondence he received from the state was early in the fall, scheduling a training session for all gun shops about how the computer system for permitting would function.

A few weeks before the law was scheduled to go into effect, Wilson said he received communication that the training was canceled, and that stores would need to call into the State Bureau of Identification to verify each purchase permit, instead of using an online server.  

Since November, Wilson said he has not gotten any more updated information from the state about the status of the FTAP system, but he has heard anecdotally that the system is supposed to be ready by March. 

If the state police have been able to deal with FFLs having to call in and verify that purchasers can legally get a gun without too many delays, it’s only because the volume of sales had declined dramatically since the law took effect. Delaware Spotlight spoke to one gun store owner who said handgun sales have dropped by 60% to 65% since November, during what is typically some of the busiest months of the year for gun stores. 

That aligns with the 66% in Delaware from November to December 2025 recorded by the anti-gun website The Trace, and stands in stark contast to what happened nationally in those months. The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports there were 1,408,230 background checks performed on firearm transfers in November 2025, and that number ticked up to 1,587,049 in December. 

Even if Delaware’s permit-to-purchase scheme was operating flawlessly, sales would still be down significantly. In order to buy a handgun in Delaware these days, a purchaser must first go through an eight-hour firearms training course which includes firing 100 rounds at a range. Between the cost of the training and the $85 fingerprinting fee, buying a handgun in the state now costs about $200 to $300 dollars more than it did this time last year.  

Some firearm instructors are encouraging folks to just get their concealed carry permit instead, since that negates the need for a permit-to-purchase and doesn’t expire as quickly as the permit-to-purchase as well. Gun trainer Bill Walters told Delaware Spotlight that he’s had seven people complete the permit-to-purchase training since November, while 80 others have gone through the same eight-hour training to obtain a carry license.

I’m sure Democrats are thrilled about the decline in gun sales, but if those numbers start to rebound along with an increase in concealed carry permit holders wouldn’t be surprised if Delaware Democrats decide to increase the training standards for concealed carry licenses next. 

This isn’t about public safety. Violent crime has been at record-low levels in the state for the past several years, even before the permit-to-purchase law took effect. The law is meant to have a chilling effect on the number of gun owners, and so far it seems like it’s having its intended effect. 

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