Key Takeaways
- The Delaware House passed a controversial gun dealer licensing bill, referred to as the ‘FFL killer’ bill, on June 25.
- The bill requires all firearm dealers in Delaware to obtain a new state license, resulting in additional regulations and compliance costs.
- Although some provisions were removed, the bill still imposes significant burdens on small dealers, risking their ability to operate.
- The NRA-ILA urges residents to ask Governor Meyer to veto the bill, arguing it duplicates existing federal laws and does not effectively curb criminal conduct.
- Governor Meyer’s decision remains uncertain, with a deadline for public input before the session ends on June 30.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
DOVER, DE — The Delaware House passed Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 300 on June 25, sending the dealer licensing measure that gun rights groups call the “FFL killer” bill to Governor Matt Meyer for his signature or veto.
I covered this bill last month when it was still sitting in the Senate Executive Committee. It has now run the full legislative gauntlet. The Senate passed it in May, the House Administration Committee advanced it in June, and the full House cleared it this week. The only step left is the governor’s desk.
The bill creates a new state license that every firearm dealer in Delaware must hold on top of the federal Firearms License they already maintain. It layers on heightened security requirements, mandatory training, background checks for contractors and volunteers with access to firearms, recurring Delaware State Police inspections, and civil penalties up to license revocation. The requirements phase in beginning July 1, 2028.
The bill changed on its way through the General Assembly. The Senate substitute dropped the tiered fees that scaled with sales volume and set flat fees instead, $300 for an initial license and $250 to renew. It also removed the provision requiring dealers to report firearm trace information to the Attorney General, along with the Attorney General’s annual report. That is the language critics had flagged as registry infrastructure. The NRA Institute for Legislative Action stopped calling it the “Firearms Registry” bill once that provision came out.
What did not change is the part that matters most to small dealers. The licensing mandates, the inspections, and the compliance costs are still in the bill. For a home-based FFL or a small sporting goods shop running on thin margins, a duplicate state regime on top of existing ATF oversight can be the difference between staying open and closing the doors.
The NRA-ILA is now urging Delaware residents to ask Meyer to veto the bill and protect the state’s licensed dealers. The group’s position is that the legislation duplicates federal law and does nothing to stop the criminal conduct it claims to target.
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That criticism holds up. Straw purchases, trafficking, illegal possession, and dealer violations are already federal crimes. The ATF already inspects dealers. Adding a parallel state bureaucracy does not change what is already illegal. It adds cost to the law-abiding businesses that make up nearly all of Delaware’s firearms retail trade.
The contrast with the federal direction is hard to miss. The ATF’s own recently announced 34-rule reform package moves to ease enforcement pressure on dealers, including rolling back the previous administration’s zero-tolerance revocation policy that pushed many small FFLs out of business. Delaware is moving the opposite way.
A veto is a long shot. Meyer has signed gun-control legislation before, and the General Assembly’s Democratic majorities backed this bill through both chambers. But the bill is not law yet, and the window to weigh in with the governor’s office is open. Session ends June 30 so the time to act is now. The NRA-ILA has set up a Take Action page that lets Delaware residents contact Governor Meyer directly and urge him to veto SB 300. You can use it here: https://speak4.app/lp/6u011nzm
I’ll track what Meyer does with it and update when he acts.
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