Case Law Series Part 2 – The 2026 Rhode Island Gun Bills

A New Push to Block Access, Possession, and Ownership

INTRODUCTION

Rhode Island lawmakers are not simply debating whether to punish criminal misuse of firearms. Several of the 2026 gun bills now before the General Assembly would reach ordinary acquisition, ammunition access, training, insurance, continued possession, and the businesses that make lawful ownership practical.

This is the second article in a series examining Rhode Island’s recent and pending gun laws through the lens of modern Second Amendment case law. The first article laid out the major legal decisions, including District of Columbia v. Heller, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Caetano v. Massachusetts, Ezell v. City of Chicago, Nguyen v. Bonta, Rhode v. Bonta, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, and Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico.

Those cases point to a basic principle. Constitutional rights cannot be protected in theory while government surrounds it with practical barriers in real life. A right can be burdened by a ban. It can also be burdened by waiting periods, rationing systems, ammunition restrictions, training bottlenecks, recurring fees, liability traps, and rules that make lawful businesses too risky to operate.

Rhode Island’s 2026 gun bills should be read through that lens.

THE 2026 BILLS

Direct Access Barriers

The most aggressive proposal is H8073/S2710, which would move Rhode Island beyond its already enacted ban on the future sale and transfer of certain semiautomatic firearms. The new proposal would add possession to the prohibited conduct. That is a major escalation. A sales restriction tells citizens they cannot acquire certain arms in the future. A possession ban tells citizens they may become criminals for keeping arms they already lawfully acquired.

That is where Heller, Bruen, and Caetano create serious problems for the state. Heller protects arms commonly possessed by law abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Bruen requires government to justify modern restrictions through historical tradition, not modern policy balancing. Caetano rejects the idea that modern arms fall outside the Second Amendment simply because they did not exist at the founding. If the covered firearms are commonly owned by ordinary Americans, Rhode Island would have to explain how criminalizing possession fits the historical tradition the Supreme Court has required.

H7035/S2295 presents a different kind of barrier. The bill would limit a person to one firearm purchase within a 30 day period. That kind of rationing is already under pressure after Nguyen v. Bonta, where the Ninth Circuit struck down California’s one gun per month law. The court recognized that acquiring firearms is part of exercising the Second Amendment, and that government cannot simply meter the right by allowing citizens to exercise it only once each month.

Rhode Island would likely argue that a one gun per month law still leaves citizens able to buy firearms over time. That argument treats the right as something government may ration if it leaves a smaller amount available. The constitutional problem is the rationing itself. Government would not normally be allowed to tell citizens they may publish only one article per month, attend only one religious service per month, or buy only one political sign per month. A constitutional right is not protected only when it is exercised slowly enough to satisfy the state.

H8071 raises the same practical access problem through ammunition. The bill would require background checks for ammunition purchases. A firearm without ammunition is not meaningfully useful. Heller rejected a law that forced firearms in the home to be kept inoperable. An ammunition system that blocks, delays, or repeatedly denies lawful buyers can create the same kind of practical burden through a different mechanism.

Rhode v. Bonta is the obvious comparison. That case challenged California’s ammunition background check system, with plaintiffs arguing that lawful buyers were wrongly denied or delayed. The procedural posture of Rhode should be described carefully, but the principle is difficult to avoid. If the state can make ammunition access unreliable, expensive, delayed, or bureaucratic, it can burden functional firearm ownership without banning guns outright.

Liability and Business Pressure

H7755/S2726 would require firearm safety training before a person may possess or purchase a firearm. Training sounds reasonable in the abstract, and responsible gun owners regularly encourage safe handling, practice, and education. The constitutional issue appears when training becomes a mandatory gate before the right may be exercised.

Ezell v. Chicago is the key comparison. Chicago recognized firearm training as important while using zoning rules that made range access nearly impossible. The Seventh Circuit rejected that kind of practical contradiction. If Rhode Island requires training before possession, the state cannot ignore cost, class availability, instructor capacity, range access, transportation, scheduling, and delay. A training mandate can become a permission system if ordinary citizens cannot complete it quickly and affordably.

H8075 would add a direct financial barrier by requiring firearm owners to maintain liability insurance. That proposal collides with the principle behind Murdock and Harper. Those cases involved different rights, but they rejected the idea that constitutional rights can be conditioned on payment. Murdock struck down a license tax attached to protected religious activity. Harper struck down a poll tax attached to voting.

An insurance mandate is not merely paperwork. It requires citizens to buy and maintain a private financial product before they may continue exercising a constitutional right. A person who cannot afford coverage, cannot obtain coverage, or loses coverage would be placed at risk of losing the practical ability to lawfully keep arms. That turns the right into something wealth dependent.

The industry liability bills raise a separate concern. Their stated purpose is to hold firearm businesses accountable when their products are misused or illegally diverted. The risk is that the state creates a legal pathway to punish lawful manufacturers, sellers, or dealers for the independent criminal acts of third parties.

Smith & Wesson Brands v. Mexico is the warning sign. The Supreme Court rejected Mexico’s attempt to hold American firearm manufacturers liable for cartel violence without a properly pleaded basis showing that the manufacturers aided and abetted unlawful sales. Rhode Island cannot simply relabel similar theories as reasonable controls, public nuisance, or industry accountability if the actual goal is to make lawful businesses pay for crimes committed by others.

H8069/S2958 should not be dismissed as a minor signage bill. The proposal is described as a suicide prevention measure for shooting ranges, but the text goes beyond posting notices. It would also require each shooting range employee to receive Department of Health approved suicide warning sign training beginning January 1, 2027, and it directs state agencies to write implementing rules.

The constitutional issue is less direct than a firearm ban or ammunition restriction. The practical risk is that the state creates a training standard that can later be used in civil lawsuits after a suicide or attempted suicide at a range. A range facing mandatory training, future rules, and expanded liability exposure may decide the business is not worth operating. If enough ranges are pressured that way, Rhode Island burdens the practical ability to train without banning ranges outright.

Other bills are more mixed. H8068, dealing with firearm possession by minors, also depends heavily on historical evidence and exceptions. Courts have treated age based restrictions unevenly. Rhode Island may argue that minors have long been subject to special rules, while opponents may point to historic youth firearm use in hunting, militia practice, training, competition, and family supervised settings.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Not every firearm related bill cuts in the same direction. Measures expanding access to stun guns, pepper spray, or other defensive tools would be more consistent with Caetano, which rejected the idea that modern defensive arms are excluded from Second Amendment protection simply because they are modern. Those bills do not belong in the same category as possession bans, purchase rationing, ammunition checks, insurance mandates, or training gates.

The broader pattern is clear. Rhode Island is not considering one isolated restriction. The 2026 slate would layer one barrier over another. A citizen may face limits on what can be possessed, how often a firearm can be acquired, whether ammunition can be purchased, what training must be completed, what insurance must be maintained, and whether the businesses that support lawful ownership can survive the liability environment created around them.

A right does not disappear all at once. It can be narrowed, delayed, priced, rationed, and regulated until only the most persistent and well-resourced citizens can exercise it.

The next article in this series will look backward at Rhode Island’s recent gun laws already on the books. The pending bills are not an isolated push. They are the next step in a pattern that has already produced a magazine ban, an age based purchase restriction, a safe storage law, and a ban on the future sale and transfer of certain semiautomatic firearms.