Thousands of Delaware’s most vulnerable residents, forced by their socio-economic status to live in some of the state’s most dangerous neighborhoods, are prohibited from possessing the means to defend themselves from the drug dealers and thugs who infest their communities.
A five-month investigation by the Caesar Rodney Institute has revealed that all four of the state’s public housing authorities ban their residents from owning firearms – despite clear protections in the Delaware Constitution, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court decisions and recent rulings by lower courts that have found similar bans to be unconstitutional.
Violating the gun ban can result in eviction, reporter Lee Williams writes. For many families, an eviction from public housing would leave them with nowhere to go but the streets.
There are already plenty of guns in public housing, these residents say, but they’re in the hands of criminals who pay no heed to state law, much less housing authority rules or regulations. All that taxpayer-funded gun bans accomplish, they say, is to prohibit law-abiding tenants from legally acquiring the means to defend themselves.
Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association and executive director of NRA's political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, said help is on the way.
“We are currently in the process of determining our best option," Cox said. "Rest assured, all options are on the table.”
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To read more For the full Caesar Rodney Institute report, click here. |
The NRA recently settled a lawsuit against the San Francisco Housing Authority, forcing the authority to remove a firearms ban that was very similar to the bans on the books in Delaware. Several years ago, a similar NRA suit forced a public housing authority in Portland, Maine to remove their firearms prohibitions.
This would be the first time that the nation’s oldest civil rights organization would challenge gun bans in all the public housing authorities of an entire, albeit small, state.
The public housing gun bans also violate the unambiguous protections built into Delaware’s Constitution, which were added in 1987 by amendment after two years of effort by the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, and by design, are more strongly worded than the Second Amendment.
Article 1, Section 20 of the Delaware Constitution states: “A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use.”
“It doesn’t say anything about public housing residents being exempted,” said Dover attorney John Sigler, a retired Dover police captain, CRI board member and immediate past-president of the NRA.
Delaware State Housing Authority executive director Anas Ben Addi nor Wilmington Housing Authority executive director Frederick S. Purnell, Sr. were willing to be interviewed for the Caesar Rodney Institute’s story.
Neither Dover Housing Authority executive director Ami Sebastian-Hauer nor Newark Housing Authority executive director Marene Jordan responded to phone calls or emails from the Caesar Rodney Institute.
