No, Rhode Island’s Assault Weapon Ban Isn’t a ‘Roadmap’ For Other States

Rhode Island finally passed an assault weapon ban bill this year. That’s bad news, but it’s not particularly unexpected. This is a state that’s pretty anti-gun across the board. The fact that they didn’t already have a ban is the surprising part of this.

But it seems ABC News thinks that this is not just a momentous moment for Rhode Island, but for the nation.

You see, they’re breaking down how it happened as a potential roadmap for elsewhere. They don’t even pretend they’re not. They’re pretty explicit with it.

assing a new law restricting assault weapons took Rhode Island lawmakers more than 10 years, but it may offer a road map to other states looking to ease the proliferation of such firearms.

See? Told ya.

Anyway, moving on…

For advocates, the fight is a prime example of the current challenges to passing gun control measures in the U.S., particularly surrounding semiautomatic rifles that have become the weapon of choice among those responsible for most of the country’s devastating mass shootings.

When Rhode Island’s bill was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Dan McKee late last month, its sponsor, Democratic Rep. Jason Knight, told jubilant supporters: “What was once the impossible became the inevitable.”

How? Persistent advocacy, a change in legislative leadership and a last-minute overhaul to note the broader legal landscape.

Rhode Island’s ban, which goes into effect in 2026, prohibits the sale, manufacturing and distribution of certain high-powered firearms that were once banned nationwide. The law does not prohibit possessing such weapons, a key distinction compared with other assault weapon bans enacted elsewhere in the U.S.

Currently, only Washington state has a similar law.

The assault weapons ban got a much-needed boost from Senate President Valerie Lawson, who secured the Senate’s top spot in the middle of session after her predecessor, Sen. Dominick Ruggiero, died in April. Lawson turned to the bill’s sponsors and others to find common ground between lawmakers in the House and Senate who remained split on how far the law should go.

So what you need is an anti-gun state with strong anti-gun sentiments, the death of a senate president in the middle of the session, and a replacement who can work out the differences based on how freaking far to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.

Seems simple.

See, this “persistent advocacy” is one thing, but this is a state that has long had a permit-to-purchase requirement with a training component, which is one of the more anti-gun things you can have on the books short of a ban. The issue was never whether the law should pass, but how far it should go, which means finding common ground is a lot easier than in a debate about whether it should exist at all.

Those conditions don’t, thankfully, exist in most other states.

Sure, “persistent advocacy” might be important, but that only goes so far. Advocates are persistent across the nation, but gun rights wins have kept coming just the same. Even anti-gunners recognize this.

That means that this isn’t a roadmap for anything. It’s just ABC News being hopeful that they can find a way to help their anti-gun allies infringe on our rights.