Delaware's concealed carry license is created by 11 Del. C. § 1441, and that section spells out every condition a person must strictly comply with to...
Reviewed by Will Luker, Founder of CCW Hub. USCCA Training Counselor, USCCA Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, Law Enforcement.
Delaware's concealed carry license is created by 11 Del. C. § 1441, and that section spells out every condition a person must strictly comply with to get a license and keep it. Those conditions cover the written application, the citizen certificate, the oath, the training certificate, the fee, the term, and renewal. Section 1441 does not make notifying a law enforcement officer one of them. The section attaches no disclosure condition to the license. Neither does the offense the license answers: 11 Del. C. § 1442(a) defines carrying a concealed deadly weapon as carrying one concealed "without a license to do so as provided by § 1441 of this title," and announcing or disclosing appears nowhere in it.
That is a statement about what the license requires. It is separate from the statutes governing what an officer may demand during a stop and what a false answer costs, both of which are covered below.
To get the license, § 1441(a) requires you to file a written application with the Prothonotary of your county at least 15 days before the next term of Superior Court, along with the information needed for a criminal history background check, under § 1441(a)(1). You file a certificate of 5 respectable citizens attesting to your character and to the necessity of the license, under § 1441(a)(2). You verify the application by oath or affirmation, and before an initial license issues you file a notarized instructor certificate covering the ten training elements listed in § 1441(a)(3). You pay $65 at filing, under § 1441(a)(4).
Keeping it:
The license itself is a photographic document. Section 1441(f) has the Secretary of State prepare the blank forms and directs the Prothonotaries to affix a photographic representation of the licensee to the license before lamination.
Beyond remaining eligible, § 1441 imposes a continuing obligation on the temporary nonresident license issued under § 1441(k), which "must be carried at all times while within the State." It imposes no parallel obligation on the resident license issued under § 1441(a). The next part sets out that split.
Section 1441 contains exactly one instruction to keep the license on your person, and it is not the resident license. Under § 1441(k), the Attorney General may issue a temporary license to a nonresident with a short-term employment-related need. That temporary license expires automatically 30 days from issuance, cannot be renewed, is capped at 3 per individual, and "must be carried at all times while within the State." The ordinary license issued under § 1441(a) carries no parallel command in the section.
The license still matters at an encounter because of how the offense is written. Under § 1442(a), a person is guilty of carrying a concealed deadly weapon "when the person carries concealed a deadly weapon upon or about the person without a license to do so as provided by § 1441 of this title." The absence of the license is an element. Section 1442(b) grades the offense as a class G felony, or a class D felony when the weapon is a firearm or projectile weapon, which under § 4205(b)(7) and § 4205(b)(4) means up to 2 years and up to 8 years at Level V respectively.
Delaware licenses are also verifiable through law enforcement channels rather than only from the card. The Attorney General's CCDW page states that law enforcement officials from other jurisdictions "may verify Delaware CCDW permits by contacting the Delaware State Police Headquarters via NLET.AM directed to DEDSP0000 or by calling (302) 659-2341." Under § 1441(j), the Attorney General's annual reciprocity list is made readily available to all State and local law-enforcement agencies in Delaware as well as to current Delaware licensees.
Section 1442 carries two defenses worth knowing. Under § 1442(c) it is a defense that the license had expired, renewal was applied for within the allotted time before expiration, and the alleged offense occurred while that renewal was pending before the court. Under § 1442(d) it is a defense that the defendant complied with § 1456(b), the vehicle storage provision.
Delaware's stop-and-question statute is 11 Del. C. § 1902. Under § 1902(a), a peace officer may stop any person "abroad, or in a public place" whom the officer has reasonable ground to suspect is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime, and "may demand the person's name, address, business abroad and destination." Those four items are the enumerated demand.
Under § 1902(b), a person so questioned "who fails to give identification or explain the person's actions to the satisfaction of the officer may be detained and further questioned and investigated." Section 1902(c) caps the total detention at 2 hours, states that the detention is not an arrest and is not recorded as one, and requires that at the end the person be either released or arrested and charged.
Section 1903 is the frisk provision. A peace officer may search for a dangerous weapon any person stopped or detained under § 1902 whenever the officer has reasonable ground to believe the officer is in danger if the person possesses a dangerous weapon. If a weapon is found, the officer "may take and keep it until the completion of the questioning, when the officer shall either return it or arrest the person," and that arrest may be for illegal possession of the weapon.
Sections 1902 and 1903 are not the only provisions that reach the same encounter. Section 1910 supplies a second identification demand: where a peace officer has reasonable ground to believe a crime has been committed, the officer may stop a person the officer has reasonable ground to believe was present and "may demand the person's name and address," and a person who "fails to give identification to the satisfaction of the officer" may be taken before a magistrate, who "may require the person to furnish bond or may commit the person to jail until the person so gives identification." That demand reaches name and address only. Section 1904 governs arrest without a warrant, and under § 1904(b)(1) a warrantless felony arrest is lawful whenever the officer "has reasonable ground to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a felony," which matters because § 1442 is a felony. Section 1441 is what determines whether the possession the officer finds is lawful.
No Delaware provision requires a licensee to volunteer that a weapon is being carried. A separate statute governs false answers. Under 11 Del. C. § 1245A(a), a person is guilty of providing a false statement to law enforcement when, with intent to prevent, hinder, or delay the investigation of any crime or offense, the person knowingly provides any false written or oral statement to a law-enforcement officer or agency, and the statement is material to the investigation. Section 1245A(b)(2) defines "false" to include untrue, incomplete, or misleading information. Section 1245A(b)(3) defines "material" as a statement that could have affected the course or outcome of the investigation. Grading follows the offense under investigation: a class G felony if that offense is a felony, under § 1245A(c), and a class A misdemeanor otherwise, under § 1245A(d).
Two related statutes sit near it. Section 1233 makes it a class A misdemeanor to knowingly make a false statement in a written instrument bearing a notice, authorized by law, that false statements are punishable, which is the notice § 1441(l) requires on temporary license applications. Section 1257(b) makes it a class A misdemeanor to intentionally prevent or attempt to prevent a peace officer from effecting an arrest or detention, or to intentionally flee from one, and § 1257(a) raises that to a class G felony when force or violence is used.
| Statute | Offense | Grade | Maximum Level V term |
|---|---|---|---|
| § 1442(b) | Carrying concealed deadly weapon without a § 1441 license (firearm) | Class D felony | 8 years, § 4205(b)(4) |
| § 1442(b) | Carrying concealed deadly weapon without a § 1441 license (other) | Class G felony | 2 years, § 4205(b)(7) |
| § 1245A(c) | False statement to law enforcement, felony investigation | Class G felony | 2 years, § 4205(b)(7) |
| § 1245A(d) | False statement to law enforcement, non-felony investigation | Class A misdemeanor | 1 year and $2,300, § 4206(a) |
| § 1233 | Making a false written statement | Class A misdemeanor | 1 year and $2,300, § 4206(a) |
| § 1257(b) | Resisting arrest or detention | Class A misdemeanor | 1 year and $2,300, § 4206(a) |
| § 1257(a) | Resisting arrest with force or violence | Class G felony | 2 years, § 4205(b)(7) |
Section 1457 makes possession of a weapon in a Safe Recreation Zone a crime, but a derivative one. Section 1457(a) reaches a person who commits one of the underlying offenses listed in § 1457(b) while in or on such a zone, and § 1442 is the first entry on that list. Because § 1442 is defined by the absence of a § 1441 license, license status decides whether the underlying offense exists at all. Section 1457(h) exempts only police officers and constables employed by a recreation zone, § 1457(e) forecloses the defense that the person did not know the location was a Safe Recreation Zone, and § 1457(j)(3) raises a class E, F, or G underlying felony one grade.
The General Assembly wrote express licensee carve-outs where it wanted them, and both are narrow. Section 1457A(c)(4) exempts a valid § 1441 licensee from the Safe School Zone offense only if the firearm or projectile weapon is in a motor vehicle, and § 1457C(c)(5) uses the same vehicle-only structure for college and university safe zones.
Concealment appears in these statutes as a condition on one carve-out from local ordinances, and it operates where those ordinances operate. Under 22 Del. C. § 111(b), municipal governments "may adopt ordinances regulating the possession of firearms... in police stations and municipal buildings," and 9 Del. C. § 330(d) does the same for counties. Such an ordinance "shall not prevent" carrying by a person holding a valid license under § 1441 or § 1441A "so long as the firearm remains concealed except for inadvertent display or for self-defense or defense of others," under 22 Del. C. § 111(b)(6) and 9 Del. C. § 330(d)(6). Section 1441A is Delaware's implementation of the federal Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act for qualified law-enforcement officers, not a second civilian licensing route. The concealment condition therefore attaches to carrying inside those buildings and police stations, and under 22 Del. C. § 111(c) a "municipal building" excludes "any parking facility."
A produce-on-request obligation does exist, and it is administrative rather than statutory. The Division of Parks and Recreation describes the Regulations Governing State Parks, 7 DE Admin. Code 9201, as allowing "holders of valid Delaware concealed-carry permits to carry within parks, including designated areas, provided only that the permit be produced upon request." The designated areas are park facilities where those regulations otherwise prohibit firearms, among them park offices, visitor centers, playgrounds, and guarded beaches. Inside a Delaware state park, producing the permit on request is the condition on which that carry authority rests.
Three obligations sit close together here, and Delaware answers each differently. Inform: no Delaware provision requires a licensee to tell an officer that a weapon is being carried, and the demand 11 Del. C. § 1902(a) authorizes reaches name, address, business abroad, and destination. Carry: 11 Del. C. § 1441(k) requires the 30-day nonresident temporary license to "be carried at all times while within the State," and no provision imposes that on the § 1441(a) resident license. Produce: 7 DE Admin. Code 9201 conditions permit-based carry in Delaware state parks on the permit being "produced upon request."
This page covers one part of our Delaware concealed carry guide.
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