Midstate Gun Co.

Rhode Island’s Assault Weapon Ban Is a Slow-Motion Confiscation

As of July 1, Rhode Island’s assault weapon ban is now in effect. Residents who already lawfully own affected fi****ms may keep them, for now, but new purchases, sales, and in-state transfers are prohibited. That includes transfers between friends and family. Possession was not banned this year, but the practical effect is obvious: the state has cut off the lawful pipeline. And they will try the possession ban again next year.

This is not an immediate confiscation law. It is a slow-motion ban by attrition. An 18-year-old Rhode Islander coming of age after July 1 will never have the same opportunity to purchase the same commonly owned fi****ms that older adults could buy before the deadline. As current owners die, move, sell out of state, or lose fi****ms to damage and destruction, the number of these constitutionally protected fi****ms in Rhode Island will steadily shrink. That is the point.

The state’s definition is not based on rate of fire, caliber, muzzle energy, or any meaningful change in mechanical function. A semiautomatic rifle still fires one round per trigger pull. Instead, Rhode Island targeted features such as folding or telescoping stocks, bayonet mounts, grenade-launcher mounts, barrel shrouds, pistol grips, thumbhole stocks, flash suppressors, and threaded barrels.

None of those features turn a rifle into a machine gun. None makes the cartridge more powerful. None changes the basic operating system. Some, like pistol grips and adjustable stocks, improve ergonomics and control. For an inherently dangerous tool, better control should be considered a safety feature, not a threat. Others, like flash suppressors or grenade-launcher mounts, add length, mass, or hardware, making the firearm less concealable, not more. The feature test reads less like technical fi****ms policy and more like a list of things that look frightening to people unfamiliar with fi****ms.

They claimed this law is about saving lives. The data says otherwise. In 2024, CDC WONDER reported zero Rhode Island deaths for the combined long-gun categories covering rifle, shotgun, and larger firearm accidents, suicides, assaults, and undetermined discharges. That same year, vehicle and transport accidents killed 69 Rhode Islanders.

The five-year numbers are even clearer. From 2020 through 2024, CDC WONDER recorded 18 Rhode Island deaths involving rifles, shotguns, and larger fi****ms combined, including suicides, accidents, assaults, and undetermined cases. During that same period, vehicle and transport accidents killed 378 Rhode Islanders — twenty-one times as many.

No serious person proposes banning cars. Why? Because cars have lawful uses, millions of people use them responsibly, and public policy normally targets reckless misuse rather than banning the object itself. Fi****ms deserve at least the same logic — especially because fi****ms, unlike cars, are expressly protected by both the Second Amendment and the Rhode Island State Constitution.

The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, and the Supreme Court has held that this right applies against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Aritcle 1 Section 22 of Rhode Island’s own Constitution is even more direct: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Fortunately, Rhode Island’s law may not stand for long. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear major assault-weapon-ban challenges from Illinois/Cook County and Connecticut, cases that ask whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect AR-15-platform and similar semiautomatic rifles. If the Court holds that AR- and AK-style rifles are protected arms in common lawful use, Rhode Island’s ban, along with similar bans across the country, could be overturned or severely limited.

The Second Amendment exists precisely because the founders understood that an armed citizenry is a final safeguard against government overreach. That does not mean violence is desirable or inevitable. It means the right itself was designed as a limit on state power. When politicians seek to remove or limit that right, by attrition or outright confiscation, citizens are justified in asking why.

Rhode Island’s assault weapon ban is not evidence-based public safety policy. It is a slow-motion prohibition of constitutionally protected arms through attrition. It does not target criminal misuse. It does not target the weapons most commonly used in violent crime. It does not even target mechanical function. It targets features that frighten politicians who clearly do not even try to understand them.

If the goal was to save lives, the data points elsewhere. If the goal was to respect constitutional rights, this law would not exist. The most charitable explanation is fear of the unknown. The less charitable one is that politicians know exactly which right they are trying to shrink.