Delaware Governor Markell signs gun background check bill into law

Delaware Online – by Doug Denison

Most private gun transfers in Delaware will soon be subject to the same background check rules currently applied to sales by licensed dealers, according a measure signed into law today by Gov. Jack Markell.

The signing comes on a day when several other pieces of a Democrat-sponsored package of gun control bills are facing committee action in the General Assembly.  

The background check law is the first piece of the package, introduced earlier this year, to win passage.

Effective July 1, private gun sellers will be required to obtain federal background checks on buyers, except in cases where a firearm is being transferred to a close family member, a law enforcement officer or the holder of a valid concealed-carry permit.

The background checks will be performed on behalf of private sellers by federally licensed firearms dealers, who may charge a fee for the service.

“Today we are closing the private-sale loophole once and for all,” Markell said. “No longer will we have two different markets for the sale of firearms, a regulated market for dealers and an unregulated market for everybody else.”

Delaware passed its first background-check law in 1990, four years before Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Six previous Delaware bills to compel private-sale checks failed in the General Assembly.

House committees today will hold hearings on four other gun bills.

Two are bipartisan measures that would increase the mandatory jail terms for offenders guilty of illegally possessing a firearm or carrying an illegally concealed gun. They have wide support and are expected to pass easily.

A third bill to be heard in committee today seeks to prevent those with mental illnesses from possessing guns, by expanding reporting provisions applied to practitioners and including in existing law more individuals who have been treated for mental health conditions.

Also in committee is a bill to tighten rules for reporting lost and stolen firearms, which has already passed the Senate.

Contact Doug Denison at 678-4271, on Twitter @DoverDelDenison or at ddenison@delawareonline.com.

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130508/NEWS02/305080063/Markell-signs-gun-background-check-bill-into-law

4 thoughts on “Delaware Governor Markell signs gun background check bill into law

  1. Due to loose incorporation rules and a very friendly business minded Delaware goverment, there are probably more corporations that have established a phony front in Delaware than any other state.

    If the guv wanted to go after REAL criminals, he’d sic the AG on the bankster gangsters, polluters and other like terrorists in that state and leave ‘We the People’ alone.

  2. A thought occurred to me reading this: existing background check laws may “require” deleting personal information after the check is concluded, but with the National Security Agency scooping up 100% of our communications by phone or email, this is meaningless. When your firearms dealer calls up the state police background check, the voice is automatically converted to text and stored in one of the new gigantic digital warehouses as in Utah http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/ That means they have EVERYTHING about the sale, right down to all of your personal information and the make, model, caliber, and serial number of the firearm on record. If that isn’t a national gun registration system, I don’t know what is. The state police can claim they destroyed the paperwork post-sale with a straight face, but the federal government still has a record of the sale.

    1. Yep. I think they just want to have the power to say they can do it, like everything else. I mean we all know they do things anyway, regardless of whether it is legal or not. Like the Nazi’s and Bolsheviks, they just want to make it look like they are doing it legally. It’s all a part of the complicitness and the feeling of controlling and manipulating a slave. It’s all about power. To have covert power undercover is not enough for them. They want overt power in broad daylight. That makes them feel even more powerful and in control in their sick, psychotic minds.

  3. Ever notice how most of this stuff is being passed in the Northeastern states or around the 13 colonies area, with the exception of Colorado and California while the rest are rebelling against it? Kinda reminds you of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Hardly any states in the Midwest or West took part in it all. It was always only the Eastern side of the country that felt the need to be dictate the rest of the country. The same thing is happening again.

    That being said, maybe they want to split the U.S. in two with their New Madrid Fault in order to make it easier to control. Divide and Conquer. Have Colorado the capital of the West and Washington D.C. the capital of the East. It wouldn’t surprise me. Anything’s possible in the minds of these crazy psychopaths.

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