Brown Students Want More Red Tape Wrapped Around Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Rhode Island gun owners could soon be forced to take an eight-hour firearms training course and pass a test in order to keep ahold of the guns they currently own. 

A pair of Brown students are among those pushing for the change. In a column at the Boston Globe, Jack DiPrimio and Michael Citarella make their case for expanding the state’s “blue card” requirements, but in doing so they present a false picture of the changes in store for gun owners if the bill they’re backing becomes law. 

Right now, Rhode Island requires anyone seeking to purchase a handgun to pass a written safety test to receive a “blue card.” The test comprises 50 multiple-choice questions, and if you fail the test, you can just retake it at another time. No matter how many times you take it and fail, the questions always remain in the same order.

Once you pass that test, the certification never expires. You could take it at 21 and, decades later, still be legally cleared to purchase a firearm without ever demonstrating that you understand updated laws, safe storage requirements, or evolving best practices. Laws change. Technology changes. Our understanding of responsible storage changes. The “blue card” requirement, however, does not.

The legislation we are supporting would require “blue card” holders to retake the safety test every five years. It would ensure that gun owners remain informed about current state and federal firearm laws, safe storage standards, and child access prevention requirements.

We did not walk into the chamber on Feb. 10 as professional lobbyists, just students who would rather be in class. We were there to tell our stories, to honor those who couldn’t be there, and to fight for the thousands of members of our general who have been impacted by school shootings.

This reform is deliberately narrow and practical. It does not ban any firearms. It does not confiscate weapons. It does not dismantle the Second Amendment. It strengthens an existing safeguard by adding periodic accountability.

This “reform” isn’t narrow, nor is it practical. H 7755 actually expands the “blue card” requirement to the purchase of all firearms, not just handguns as the law currently states. And because the bill requires a mandatory eight-hour “gun safety” course every five years in order to legally maintain possession of those firearms, it’s far broader than the current “permit-to-purchase” scheme. Having to take a test before exercising a fundamental civil right is already an infringement, but making gun owners pay a hundred dollars or more for a redundant firearms training course in order to legally possess the guns they legally purchased adds an additional burden. 

And what happens if a lawful gun owner doesn’t take that mandated training and receive a new “blue card”? Are their guns confiscated? Are they charged with a crime? 

Should DiPrimio and Citarella have to retake their final exams every five years in order for their Brown diplomas to remain valid? After all, subject matter changes over time. Our understanding of public affairs (DiPrimio’s focus), history, and political science (Citarella’s focus) changes over time. Their degree may indicate competency in those subject matters at the time, but how can employers be assured that they understand updated laws, policies, and new discoveries in their fields? 

The pair claim that “a gun does not become safer just because it is considered legally owned,” and argue that “we must update how our government views responsible gun ownership” in order to prevent attacks like the shooting at Brown and the more recent murder-suicide in Pawtucket. But they never do explain how their proposal would stop a deranged killer from carrying out mass murder, probably because they can’t. 

H 7755 isn’t about public safety, but it is aimed at re-defining how government views responsible gun ownership; turning it into a right protected by the Constitution into a privilege to be doled out by the state. 

DiPrimio and Citarella say they’re facing pushback from legislators over H 7755, which is good to hear. Still, the Democrat majority may want to “do something” on gun control this session to appease their base before the November elections, and Rhode Island gun owners should be flooding the officers of their state reps and senators to demand they reject this unnecessary, unwarranted, unconstitutional, and ineffective legislation at the first opportunity.   

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights, as this clearly shows.

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