A gun rights group has asked a federal judge to reject Delaware's attempt to undo a ruling that struck down part of the state's ban on unfinished firearm frames and receivers, commonly called ghost guns. Firearms Policy Coalition filed an opposition brief on Thursday, pushing back against Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings's effort to alter a judgment the state lost just two months earlier.
In September, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled that Delaware's ban on incomplete frames or receivers violated the Second Amendment, while leaving other restrictions in place, according to WDEL. Noreika, who was appointed by President Trump, found that incomplete frames or receivers qualify as arms protected under the Second Amendment, reasoning that such components are necessary for a gun to function as intended, per the seed facts surrounding the case covered by The Daily Caller. She wrote that firearm frames and receivers are likewise “arms” under the Second Amendment, pointing to federal law's own definition of a firearm as including its frame or receiver.
Delaware Sought a Second Chance
Jennings filed a motion in October asking Noreika to alter her judgment, arguing the court committed clear error by finding firearm manufacture protected by the Second Amendment. The state also claimed that a serialization requirement imposed on all firearms represented, at most, an incidental burden that would be constitutional under the Bruen legal framework at its first step, and separately argued the requirement was not a significant burden on gun rights.
Firearms Policy Coalition countered in its new filing that a statutory amendment Delaware passed did not cure the constitutional defects the court identified, meaning the case is not moot. According to the group, the Firearms Policy Coalition said it filed its opposition brief on November 12, framing the dispute bluntly: Delaware lost, and it does not get a do-over on what the group calls an unconstitutional ghost gun ban. The organization noted the case traces back to an earlier 2022 victory, when it secured a preliminary injunction against the same restrictions, well before September's judgment.
No Safe Harbor, Group Argues
FPC's brief contends there is no safe harbor for self-manufactured firearms under the amended law. The group argued that the possession safe harbor Delaware points to is limited to firearms possessed before the statute's effective date, according to a report from USA Carry. That distinction matters because, per the same account, the safe harbor does not allow plaintiffs John Rigby and Alan Knight to reacquire the firearms and components they had already relinquished under the original ban.
Beyond the technical scope of the safe harbor, FPC argued that depriving the plaintiffs of their constitutionally protected rights constitutes irreparable injury, and that there is no public interest in enforcing laws the group considers unconstitutional. As of the USA Carry report, Noreika had not yet ruled on Delaware's motion, leaving the case's next move in her hands.
Part of a Broader Legal Fight
The Delaware case unfolds against a backdrop of conflicting rulings and ongoing litigation over ghost guns nationally. In August 2026, a Ninth Circuit three-judge panel ruled that a separate lawsuit seeking tighter ghost-gun regulations, brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Giffords Law Center against the ATF, should be dismissed for lack of standing. Days earlier, Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled that the ATF's frame-or-receiver rule was unconstitutional on both Fifth and Second Amendment grounds.
Those rulings stand in some tension with a 2025 Supreme Court decision that upheld the Biden administration's regulations on ghost guns by a 7-2 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts joined by Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in the majority. The federal ATF rule at issue in that case required sellers of weapon-parts kits to conduct background checks on buyers and mark the parts with serial numbers, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. The Delaware fight, playing out separately in the District of Delaware, now hinges on whether Noreika agrees that her September judgment should stand as written.
