Delaware
Delaware, New Jersey, Illinois lead multistate coalition supporting PA gun safety law – State of Delaware News
Attorney General Kathy Jennings today co-led a coalition of 18 attorneys general filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The coalition urged the court to revisit an opinion striking down a Pennsylvania law prohibiting individuals under the age of 21 from carrying concealed weapons in public and imposing additional restrictions during declared states of emergency. Delaware, New Jersey, and Illinois were the lead states on the brief.
In the brief, AG Jennings asks the full court to review a recent opinion in Lara v. Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, a lawsuit challenging a Pennsylvania law that restricts the issuance of concealed carry weapons permits to people ages 21 and up.
“Some things are just a matter of common sense,” said AG Jennings. “Deep red and deep blue states alike have laws that govern concealed carry or other access to firearms for people under 21. The panel ruling in this case is inconsistent with more than a century of legal precedent and, if allowed to stand, will set back the states’ ability to curtail gun violence at a time when guns are the leading cause of death for children.”
The court’s opinion, if not corrected, will raise questions about the constitutionality of similar statutes in more than 30 other states with age restrictions on firearms access. The coalition explained in the brief that those statutes are constitutional because they are consistent with our country’s historical tradition because similar laws have existed for over 150 years. Jennings and the attorneys general argued that the opinion should be revisited because the court’s reasoning, if adopted elsewhere, could threaten the states’ ability to defend and enforce all manner of firearms regulations.
The brief is the most recent step in Attorney General Jennings’ work to address gun violence throughout Delaware and across the nation. Gun violence in Delaware has fallen by 20% since the pandemic, and violent crime has reached an all-time low, due in part to a variety of enforcement initiatives — including gang prosecutions, law enforcement intelligence sharing programs, gun trafficking indictments, new bail laws aimed at violent offenders, and a high conviction rate against gun offenders.
Jennings is an outspoken advocate for permit-to-purchase legislation, which is currently awaiting consideration in Delaware’s General Assembly. She has also supported gun safety laws that ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, ban unserialized “ghost guns,” limit handgun access to adults over 21, and enable the State to hold gun dealers accountable for negligent business practices that enable gun violence.
Joining Jennings in filing the amicus brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
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Attorney General Kathy Jennings today co-led a coalition of 18 attorneys general filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. The coalition urged the court to revisit an opinion striking down a Pennsylvania law prohibiting individuals under the age of 21 from carrying concealed weapons in public and imposing additional restrictions during declared states of emergency. Delaware, New Jersey, and Illinois were the lead states on the brief.
In the brief, AG Jennings asks the full court to review a recent opinion in Lara v. Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, a lawsuit challenging a Pennsylvania law that restricts the issuance of concealed carry weapons permits to people ages 21 and up.
“Some things are just a matter of common sense,” said AG Jennings. “Deep red and deep blue states alike have laws that govern concealed carry or other access to firearms for people under 21. The panel ruling in this case is inconsistent with more than a century of legal precedent and, if allowed to stand, will set back the states’ ability to curtail gun violence at a time when guns are the leading cause of death for children.”
The court’s opinion, if not corrected, will raise questions about the constitutionality of similar statutes in more than 30 other states with age restrictions on firearms access. The coalition explained in the brief that those statutes are constitutional because they are consistent with our country’s historical tradition because similar laws have existed for over 150 years. Jennings and the attorneys general argued that the opinion should be revisited because the court’s reasoning, if adopted elsewhere, could threaten the states’ ability to defend and enforce all manner of firearms regulations.
The brief is the most recent step in Attorney General Jennings’ work to address gun violence throughout Delaware and across the nation. Gun violence in Delaware has fallen by 20% since the pandemic, and violent crime has reached an all-time low, due in part to a variety of enforcement initiatives — including gang prosecutions, law enforcement intelligence sharing programs, gun trafficking indictments, new bail laws aimed at violent offenders, and a high conviction rate against gun offenders.
Jennings is an outspoken advocate for permit-to-purchase legislation, which is currently awaiting consideration in Delaware’s General Assembly. She has also supported gun safety laws that ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, ban unserialized “ghost guns,” limit handgun access to adults over 21, and enable the State to hold gun dealers accountable for negligent business practices that enable gun violence.
Joining Jennings in filing the amicus brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
Keep up to date by receiving a daily digest email, around noon, of current news release posts from state agencies on news.delaware.gov.
Here you can subscribe to future news updates.
School board elections are one of the highest-leverage, lowest-participation decisions in Delaware. Turnout is low. Margins are small. In some cases, candidates run without a real contest. When voters do not engage, leadership is not selected. It is decided by default. When governance is decided by default, the system performs accordingly.
It’s clear that when residents fail to vote, it can have consequences — ones that most people recognize, but rarely connect to the ballot box. It shapes whether schools are focused on clear priorities or pulled in competing directions. It determines whether resources are invested in what improves student outcomes or spread thin. Those decisions show up in real ways: in the preparedness of students, the confidence of families, and the strength of Delaware’s workforce and economy.
In 2024, fewer than 5% of eligible voters cast ballots in Delaware school board elections, even as concern about outcomes, funding, and district leadership remained high across every sector of public life. The disconnect between what communities demand and how they participate is one of the most significant, and most solvable, barriers to progress in our state.
Data from the 2026 Delaware Opportunity Outlook reinforce this disconnect. A majority of Delawareans believe school board members have a direct influence on the quality of K–12 education, yet far fewer report understanding how improvement efforts are being carried out, or how decisions are made at the local level. In other words, people believe boards matter, but are not consistently using the one mechanism they have to influence who serves and how decisions are made.
What governing actually requires
A strong board member asks clear, outcome-focused questions and expects specific answers. They connect decisions to priorities, work through tradeoffs with colleagues, and ensure decisions are understood before the board moves forward. They listen for whether information reflects progress or activity, and press for clarity when it does not.
These are not intuitive responsibilities. They require preparation. School board governance is often treated as something individuals can step into without training, but these are complex roles that involve setting priorities, interpreting data, making tradeoffs, and ensuring decisions lead to results over time.
The Delaware Opportunity Outlook suggests that this is not how the role is widely understood. While Delawareans recognize that school boards influence the quality of education, far fewer identify training and professional preparation as essential.
That gap has direct consequences. As the state advances new priorities, the effectiveness of those efforts will depend on whether local board members are prepared to implement them, monitor progress, and make results visible.
Delaware’s moment
Delaware has established a clear direction for public education: defined priorities, a statewide literacy commitment, and a funding reform that will place significant new responsibilities on local boards. Plans set direction. Boards determine whether those plans turn into results.
What happens next will not be determined by those plans alone. It will be determined by how effectively school boards translate those priorities into decisions, how consistently they track progress, and whether they make results visible to the public.
Candidate evaluation
Evaluating a candidate is straightforward: Can they name a small number of district priorities and explain why those matter? Can they describe what data they would review regularly and how they would use it? Can they explain how resources should align to outcomes and what they would do if results do not improve? Candidates who can answer those questions demonstrate an understanding of the role. Those who cannot speak to governance beyond the issues that brought them to the race may find the role more demanding than they anticipated.
Make your voice heard
Voting in a school board election is one of the few places where individual participation has a direct and immediate impact on how the system performs. School board elections are decided by small numbers of voters. Your decision to engage, or not, determines who governs. Choosing not to participate is not neutrality. It is a choice, and it carries the same weight as the vote itself.
Today, a decision will be made about who governs Delaware’s schools. You can be part of that decision, or it will be made without you. Either way, the results will show up in classrooms, in communities, and in the long-term strength of this state.
Find out who is running. Evaluate them on the work the role requires, not only on the positions they hold. Vote, and encourage others to do the same.
For more details about voting in today’s elections, visit First State Educate’s 2026 School Board Elections page.
Read more from Spotlight Delaware
Monday, May 11, 2026 10:57AM
TRAINER BOROUGH, Pa. (WPVI) — A person has died after being hit by a vehicle in Delaware County.
It happened around 2:45 a.m. on Monday in the 4300 block of West 9th Street in Trainer Borough.
Police and fire crews were called to the Parkview Mobile Home community for reports of a pedestrian hit by a car.
Officials say the victim went into cardiac arrest immediately after the crash.
The investigation into the crash is ongoing.
Copyright © 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.
LAUREL, Del. — Delaware State Police are investigating a shooting in Laurel that left a 19-year-old man injured Friday afternoon and resulted in firearm charges against a Georgetown man, authorities said.
Troopers responded around 3:20 p.m. Friday to TidalHealth Nanticoke after the victim arrived at the hospital in a personal vehicle with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, according to police. Investigators said the man had been shot in front of a residence on Portsville Road near Randall Street in Laurel.
Police said the victim was transported to the hospital in a blue Mazda 3 driven by 20-year-old Alexison Amisial of Georgetown. Troopers later located the vehicle and Amisial at First Stop Gas Station, where investigators said he was found carrying an untraceable firearm concealed in his waistband.
Amisial was taken into custody without incident and charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon and possession of an untraceable firearm, both felonies, police said. He was arraigned in Justice of the Peace Court 3 and released on a $3,500 unsecured bond.
The Delaware State Police Troop 4 Criminal Investigations Unit continues to investigate the shooting. Authorities are asking anyone with information to contact Detective R. Mitchell at 302-752-3794 or Delaware Crime Stoppers at 800-847-3333.
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