So, they’re trying to pass a very wide reaching “assault weapons” ban in Delaware.
This is very wide reaching and covers about 60 makes of guns, including “semi-automatic rifles and handguns”. A similar bill passed in Maryland in 2013 and was upheld by the 4th circuit court of appeals. They tried in Delaware around the same time and it never made it to a vote.
This time, I believe this is going to go up for a vote soon. In spite of the fact that Delaware has extremely low gun ownership (5.2%), and probably a vast majority of the constituency are indifferent to something like this, I do not believe that this will pass as-is.
But let’s say that it does. Unlike Maryland, Delaware has strong protections of gun ownership in it’s constitution put in the 1980s. I am 100% sure if it passed, this would be appealed to the higher courts.
My question is, what happens when it is under appeal? Can you still by guns?
IANAL but - a law as passed is legal and can be enforced until a court says it is not - i.e. it violates the constitution, etc. To do so, someone has to sue (and have standing to bring the suit, I.e. affected by the law) Usually along with the suit is a request to the judge for an injunction - to put the law on “hold”, to forbid the state from enforcing its provisions until the case is decided. Usually to put a law on hold, it has to meet assorted criteria (which a real lawyer could better enumerate). I.e. causes irreparable harm, or very obvious it does violate the constitution, etc. (the judge has to decide - which is worse, enforcing the law while the case is pending, or not enforcing it?)
Often, when somebody wants to sue to overturn a new law or regulation, a judge will issue a stay which disallows enforcement of the law (or upholds the status quo) until the litigation is resolved.
So, if a stay is issued, you could buy one of the specified guns, and it would not be an “illegal gun”?
AFAIK, the law proposed forbids the sale of the guns, it doesn’t forbid possession. So I imagine there would a significant run on guns during the stay, and nothing would happen to the people that bought the gun during the stay. But you would never be able to sell the gun afterwards if it was upheld.
If the law is stayed, then a gun bought during that time is no different than one bought before the law passed- effectively, the law does not exist. If it forbade possession, then I guess the same would apply as to guns already in possession before the law passed.
This is why, as I understand it, one of the criteria for a stay is to weigh the damage between staying the law and not doing so.