Background
Delaware enacted House Bill 451 in 2022 to prohibit most people under age 21 from purchasing, owning, possessing, or controlling firearms or ammunition other than shotguns and muzzle-loading rifles. The law exempts certain military personnel, law-enforcement officers, concealed-carry licensees, and supervised hunting, instruction, sporting, and recreational activities.
Gavin J. Birney and two firearms organizations challenged the law under Article I, Section 20 of the Delaware Constitution. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the Superior Court found that reducing gun violence among 18-to-20-year-olds was an important governmental objective and that the law was substantially related to that objective. It nevertheless held the law unconstitutional because it concluded that the restrictions excessively burdened young adults’ right to possess firearms for self-defense.
The Court’s Holding
The Delaware Supreme Court reversed. It declined to import the federal Second Amendment test announced in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen into Delaware constitutional law. The court held that challenges under Article I, Section 20 remain governed by Delaware’s means-end scrutiny precedent, including the intermediate-scrutiny framework applied in Doe v. Wilmington Housing Authority and Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club, Ltd. v. Small.
Applying that framework to the plaintiffs’ facial challenge, the court held that H.B. 451 does not burden the right to armed self-defense more than reasonably necessary to achieve the State’s objectives. The law is limited by age and weapon type and contains several exceptions, including one for concealed-carry licensees. Because the law operates constitutionally at least as to young adults who can obtain such a license—and Birney himself obtained one in 65 days—the facial challenge failed. The court also held that Delaware standing rules are prudential rather than jurisdictional and that the State waived its standing objections by failing to raise them below or in its opening appellate brief.
Justice Traynor dissented. Although he agreed that intermediate scrutiny governed, he concluded that the law rests on an inadequate factual foundation and unreasonably burdens 18-to-20-year-olds’ ability to possess handguns for self-defense. He also viewed the discretionary concealed-carry process and the availability of shotguns as inadequate substitutes for the protected right.
Key Takeaways
- Delaware courts will continue applying intermediate scrutiny—not Bruen’s history-and-tradition test—to firearm restrictions challenged solely under Article I, Section 20 of the Delaware Constitution.
- A facial challenge fails if the statute can be constitutionally applied in any circumstance; the concealed-carry exemption supplied such an application here.
- Standing in Delaware state courts is prudential rather than jurisdictional, so a party can waive a standing argument by failing to preserve it.
Why It Matters
The decision reinstates Delaware’s restrictions on firearm and ammunition access for most people under 21 and confirms that Delaware’s state constitutional firearms doctrine need not track changing federal Second Amendment methodology. State constitutional challenges will remain subject to a balancing framework that considers both the government’s objectives and the practical burden imposed on protected firearm rights.
The ruling also underscores the difficulty of facial constitutional challenges in Delaware. Litigants seeking to contest how the law affects particular young adults may need a developed record supporting an as-applied challenge rather than relying on generalized burdens affecting the entire age group.