Rhode Island Bill Shows Why Anti-Gun Lawmakers Should Never Be Trusted

We all want to trust our lawmakers. The people we vote for, we want them to do what they say and to act in our interests. Where there’s tension, though, is that everyone has different interests.

In Rhode Island, far too many people want gun control. For those who don’t, it means having to deal with the fallout from that. Luckily, there are things like grandfather clauses, plus every anti-gunner says they don’t want to ban guns, right? 

So, how bad can it be? After all, while the state passed a law banning the sale of so-called assault weapons, you at least get to keep yours.

Yeah, about that whole “trust” thing I mentioned…

A proposed bill in the Rhode Island general assembly would ban the possession of particular military-style semiautomatic guns. The bill, introduced on Feb. 27, adds to legislation from last year that banned the manufacture, sale, transfer and purchase of prohibited firearms.

State Sen. Tiara Mack ’16 (D-Providence), the primary sponsor of the bill in the Senate, told The Herald that the Dec. 13 mass shooting at Brown and the Feb. 16 mass shooting in Pawtucket spurred a greater legislative push for stricter gun control across the state, though she noted that neither of these cases involved the use of assault weapons.

Mack said she believes the 2025 legislation was not “as strong as it could have been.”

“I don’t think last year we had the political appetite to fight back against the small minority of legislators that are prioritizing guns over people,” Mack said.

Mack explained that because the U.S. Constitution prevents unlawful seizure of private property, people who currently possess these weapons would potentially be “grandfathered in” and allowed to keep them. 

“Potentially” grandfathered in. 

There was already a grandfather clause, and now Mack is saying that the previous legislation wasn’t as strong as it could be because it didn’t ban the ownership, but there might be a slightly different grandfather clause? Really?

Does anyone believe that?

And as for gun bans, what do they call this? It’s a law that will ban the sale, transfer, purchase, and now even ownership of “military-style semiautomatic guns,” but it’s not a ban?

It’s a ban.

While anti-gunners claim they don’t favor gun bans, the reality is that they do. When they actually mean it–and that’s not as often as we might want to believe–what they typically mean is that they don’t favor a total gun ban. In other words, if there is precisely one gun available for purchase, say a single-shot 22, then it meets their definition of guns not being banned.

This is a ban.

What’s even dumber is the whole “military-style semiautomatic rifle” thing. Based on Rhode Island’s definition, which requires a detachable magazine, an AR-15 is too military-like, but an M1 Garand or an SKS isn’t.

Two of those three, though, were actually deployed by militaries, and the AR-15 ain’t one of them.

Everything they’re peddling here is a falsehood. They will never, ever show us anything we can trust beyond the knowledge that they hate what the Second Amendment stands for and that they will gut it with their every waking breath if they can.

Editor’s Note: 2A groups across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and keep Rhode Island-style gun control from being enacted in that state and others. 

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