FPC and Two Delaware Gun Owners Fight State's Bid to Undo Sept. 10 Ghost Gun Ruling, Say a Ban Is Not a Serial Number Rule

On November 12, 2026, John Rigby, Alan Knight and the Firearms Policy Coalition asked a federal judge in Wilmington to leave in place her September 10 judgment striking down Delaware’s bans on possessing and making unserialized firearms. Their 21-page opposition says the state’s motion to undo that judgment defends “a statute that does not exist,” one that merely requires a serial number, when Delaware still bars making, assembling or 3-D printing a firearm at home with no way to comply.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika’s opinion, order and judgment of September 10 permanently enjoined four provisions of Title 11 of the Delaware Code: section 1459A(b), which bars possessing an unfinished frame or receiver without a maker’s name and serial number, section 1463(a), which bars possessing an untraceable firearm, the part of section 1463(b) that bars manufacturing or assembling one, and section 1463(c)(1), which bars using a 3-D printer to make a firearm or major component without a manufacturer’s license. The court upheld the state’s ban on selling or transferring unserialized frames and firearms and its ban on distributing 3-D printing files, finding the plaintiffs had not shown the file ban implicates the First Amendment. Judge Noreika wrote that “functionally ghost guns are no different than serialized guns” and that the record held no evidence that self-made guns “pose any danger that serialized or traditionally manufactured guns do not.” She added that a serialization process for currently owned self-made firearms “might pass constitutional muster.” Rigby and Knight, both Delaware residents, gave up a self-built Glock-compatible handgun and unfinished frames to avoid prosecution after the 2021 law took effect, and the case had produced a preliminary injunction in 2022.

Delaware moved on October 8 under Rule 59(e) to dissolve the injunction. The four-page motion and 28-page brief, signed by Deputy Attorneys General Jennifer Kate Aaronson and Ian R. Liston, rest on two events from the week before the ruling. On September 1 the Third Circuit decided United States v. Berger, which upheld the federal machine gun ban because such guns are commonly used for crime and upheld the suppressor registration and serialization requirement as a minimal, objective regulation that does not infringe the Second Amendment. On September 3 Gov. Matt Meyer signed House Bill 418, which gives anyone who lawfully held an unserialized firearm or unfinished frame on that date six months to have it serialized by a federally licensed dealer or manufacturer or render it permanently inoperable, with the return of a newly serialized gun treated as a transfer subject to a background check. The state says the enjoined statutes “do not ban any underlying class of firearms” but simply require that any firearm in Delaware be serialized, cites ATF figures that recoveries of ghost guns rose more than 1,000 percent between 2017 and 2021, and offers to restart the six-month period if the injunction lifts.

Rigby, Knight and FPC answer that the amendment changed little. The bill’s own synopsis says it preserves “the underlying prohibition on untraceable firearms,” and the opposition says section 1463(b) and (c)(1) still flatly prohibit manufacturing, assembling or 3-D printing a firearm, with “no exceptions,” so there is still no way to self-manufacture a new firearm even if the maker serializes it at once. The safe harbor covers only items possessed as of September 3 and does not reach firearms acquired later. Rigby and Knight have already relinquished their guns and parts, so they have not “retained possession” of anything the safe harbor could protect. Berger, the brief says, involved registration of suppressors the defendant could still own, while “a blanket prohibition with no path to compliance” is not a minimal hoop. On the state’s crime data, the opposition says “the test is common use, not criminal use,” that Berger did not hold that weapons commonly used for crime may be banned, and that the state’s new history of “public tracking” laws is an argument it never made at summary judgment and cannot raise under Rule 59(e). The brief is signed by David H. Thompson, Peter A. Patterson and William V. Bergstrom of Cooper & Kirk and Bradley P. Lehman of Whiteford, Taylor & Preston.

“Delaware criminalized peaceable people for making and possessing their own firearms, and now it’s trying to pretend these outright bans are just harmless paperwork requirements,” FPC President Brandon Combs said in the group’s November 12 release.

The appeal is already docketed. The plaintiffs filed a protective notice of appeal on October 12 in case the court found the state’s motion untimely, and the Third Circuit docketed it as No. 26-3575 on October 13 and stayed it the same day pending the post-judgment motion. A joint status report filed November 12 in the Third Circuit says the Rule 59(e) motion remains pending and that the plaintiffs will report again in 30 days if it has not been decided. The district court docket showed no ruling on the motion as of November 13, and the permanent injunction against the possession and home-manufacturing bans remains in force while Delaware’s ban on selling or transferring unserialized guns stays enforceable.