Jacob Baumgart and Sarah Gamard

Delaware News Journal

After failing to pass gun control legislation, Democratic lawmakers and the governor admit they've lost the battle this year.

It helps explain why Sunday's gun rights rally on the steps of Legislative Hall on the last day of this year's session looked more like a picnic than a protest.

The rally was hosted by Delaware Gun Rights, which formed in 2018 in response to gun control bills introduced that year.

The group is largely credited with stopping this year's gun control efforts by pressuring union members and threatening Democratic campaign cash.

Three bills were stifled this year that would have banned certain semi-automatic weapons, required a permit to buy and own a gun and capped magazines at 15 rounds.

While legislators inside the Capitol scrambled to finish the year, a crowd of more than 100 congregated just outside celebrating the majority party's failure to move those bills to the floor.

For one Sussex County couple, Erik Lynch and Elizabeth Berger, the rally was a date night.

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“He was actually terrified to ask me out because I was holding a gun in my profile picture on Facebook,” Berger said. “I got him into shooting about the time we started dating because I wasn’t going to date a man who couldn’t shoot a gun.”

The couple doesn't think the fight is over. Lynch dreams about a future where "there’s nothing they can do in office to take our guns away."

“That would be the ultimate satisfaction of winning the war," he said.

Even though the rally focused on Delaware law, not everyone there was from the state. Guest speakers came from across the country, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona. Gerjes Guevara, a Venezuelan who now lives in Utah, was an attendee.

The sunny afternoon drove many attendees to the shade where they sat in folding chairs. They only stood up after one speaker asked to take a group photo.

Others stood and waved "Don't tread on me" flags. One flag pictured a long gun with the words, “COME AND TAKE IT.”

Between speeches, a child handed out a long roll of National Rifle Association stickers, which rally-goers patted happily onto their custom-made T-shirts.

Some wore shirts supporting local unions, drawing praise from Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, one of the speakers at the rally.

He and others encouraged the audience to put unrelenting pressure on politicians. Mitch Denham, president of Delaware Gun Rights, told the crowd that they cannot give up after a few wins.

“We don’t have to be fear mongers,” Denham said. “We don’t have to have hate in our hearts … We want them to represent us, not their party.”

Denham also pointed to gun-friendly legislation that lawmakers considered this year. One bill, which passed both chambers and still needs the governor's signature, requires more evidence from a court to take away someone's firearms.

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Others didn't make it to a floor vote. One bill, for example, would redefine a “dangerous weapon” to exclude most BB guns. Another bill would redefine "firearms" to more closely align the state's meaning with federal law.

Gov. John Carney, despite originally supporting the proposed bans to certain guns and magazines, has since shifted his stance.

"The prohibition against a certain weapon is something that people on the other side just object immediately — almost viscerally — to," Carney told The News Journal in June. "Maybe the approach ought to be certain access to that weapon, or a special test in terms of a special license."

Carney thinks the proposed magazine cap, which he also supported, should have been a "no-brainer."

"You're not taking a weapon away," Carney said. "You're trying to address mass shootings."

Under the legislation, anyone who has a magazine exceeding 15 rounds would have had to give them up to law enforcement.

Carney thinks that most Delawareans want to enact the proposed ban on certain guns, but it's a matter of getting enough lawmakers behind it.

"If we're not able to move it in the Senate, you have to think about, is there some different way to approach it?" he asked.

"I haven't come up with anything," he added.

The local branch of the gun control group Moms Demand Action hasn't given up its cause to pass gun control legislation. Carney has had meetings with that group since the bills first stalled.

"I just tried to give them a pep talk," Carney said. "Don't give up ... and identify legislation that maybe has broader support."

He was referring to a bill that hasn't been introduced yet. It would ban untraceable weapons, commonly known as "ghost guns," that can be assembled with parts bought online and circumvent background checks.

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Several states have semi-automatic weapons bans, permit requirements and magazine caps similar to what Delaware failed to pass this year. Only California and New Jersey have ghost gun regulations, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Carney's administration wanted to pass the ghost gun ban before the end of this year's legislative session, but that never happened. Now, there's no word of who will sponsor it or when it will appear.

On the final day of the session, as the rally continued outside his office window, Carney called the failure of the this year's gun control bills a disappointment.

He still points to last year's gun control bills that he says have been successful. He's particularly proud of "red flag" laws that let police temporarily seize firearms from someone who could be a potential danger to themselves or others.