Case Law Series Part 3 – Rhode Island’s Recent Gun Laws

How They Are Already Standing on Shaky Ground

INTRODUCTION

The 2026 gun bills now before the Rhode Island General Assembly did not appear out of nowhere. They are the next step in a recent pattern.

Over the last several years, Rhode Island has banned future sales and transfers of certain semiautomatic firearms, imposed new firearm storage rules, banned magazines over 10 rounds, restricted firearm and ammunition purchases by adults under 21, limited loaded long gun use, and criminalized privately made firearms.

Each law was presented as public safety policy. Each one also creates legal pressure under the modern Second Amendment framework. Some are already being fought in court. Others may become future lawsuits if plaintiffs, facts, and timing line up.

RECENT RHODE ISLAND LAWS

"Assault Weapons" Restrictions

The most recent major law is Rhode Island’s 2025 ban on the future manufacture, sale, purchase, and transfer of certain semiautomatic firearms labeled by the state as assault weapons. The law allows existing owners to keep covered firearms but blocks ordinary citizens from acquiring them in the future.

That distinction may help the state in local court, but it does not erase the constitutional problem. Heller protects arms commonly possessed by law abiding citizens for lawful purposes. Bruen requires the state to justify modern restrictions through historical tradition, not public safety balancing. Caetano warns that modern arms are not excluded from constitutional protection simply because they did not exist at the founding.

If the firearms covered by Rhode Island’s law are commonly owned by Americans for lawful purposes, the state has a serious problem. A sales and transfer ban may be less aggressive than a possession ban, but it still blocks future citizens from acquiring protected arms. The 2026 possession ban proposal would take that same theory even further.

The 2024 safe storage law raises a different concern. Heller struck down a Washington, D.C. requirement that firearms in the home be kept inoperable because it interfered with the ability to use a functional firearm for self defense. Rhode Island’s law is not identical to the D.C. law, but the danger appears when storage rules prevent immediate access to a defensive firearm inside the home.

The state will argue that the law is aimed at unattended firearms, children, and prohibited persons. That is the strongest defense. The weakness is enforcement. If a person is punished for keeping a firearm ready for lawful self defense, the state begins moving toward the exact problem Heller rejected. A home defense right that must wait for locks, devices, or state approved storage conditions may become a right delayed at the moment it is needed most.

"Large Capacity" Magazine Ban

The 2022 magazine ban is already the central test case. Rhode Island banned possession, sale, transfer, purchase, and manufacture of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds. That law forced owners to surrender, permanently modify, transfer, or remove property that had previously been lawful.

Ocean State Tactical challenged the law, arguing that magazines over 10 rounds are commonly owned and used with ordinary modern firearms. The state defended the ban by arguing that the magazines are especially dangerous and that citizens still have access to firearms with smaller magazines. The district court and the First Circuit allowed the law to remain in effect at the preliminary stage.

The weakness remains. Heller’s common use principle does not ask whether a judge thinks 10 rounds is enough. Bruen does not allow the state to win by claiming modern public safety benefits. If magazines over 10 rounds are standard equipment for many common handguns and rifles, the state is restricting an ordinary component of commonly owned arms. The First Circuit may accept Rhode Island’s theory for now, but the doctrine remains unstable.

Age 21 Law

The same 2022 legislative wave also raised the minimum age to purchase firearms and ammunition to 21. That law directly affects adults ages 18 to 20. Rhode Island will argue that it regulates commercial sales and that young adults have historically been subject to special restrictions.

The challenge is that 18 to 20 year old adults are part of “the people” protected by the Constitution. If they can vote, serve in the military, be tried as adults, and exercise other constitutional rights, the state has to explain why they may be categorically blocked from purchasing firearms and ammunition. The ammunition portion is especially important. A firearm without ammunition is not meaningfully useful. A law blocking legal adults from buying ammunition burdens the practical exercise of the right.

Open Carry of Long Guns

Rhode Island also passed a loaded rifle and shotgun law in 2022. Publicly, that law was framed as a safety measure. In practical terms, it was aimed in part at hunters who park along roads and walk into the woods to reach tree stands or hunting areas.

This is not the cleanest Second Amendment challenge in the recent package. Courts may treat loaded long guns on roads, trails, and public ways differently from handguns carried for self-defense. But it still fits the larger pattern. Ordinary lawful gun use becomes a criminal risk because the state narrows when, where, and how citizens may handle firearms during traditional activities such as hunting.

"Ghost Gun" Ban

The 2020 ghost gun law deserves a solid look as well. Rhode Island did not merely regulate commercial sales. It criminalized privately made firearms that lack state approved serialization. That creates a major historical problem. At the founding, firearms were not all produced by modern licensed manufacturers with federally required serial numbers. People bought parts, used local craftsmen, repaired arms, modified arms, and assembled firearms outside anything resembling today’s federal manufacturing system. Private firearm making was not an exotic loophole. It was part of the ordinary arms culture of early America.

Rhode Island will argue that the law is aimed at modern unserialized firearms that frustrate tracing and law enforcement investigations. That argument may carry more weight after recent federal litigation over ghost gun rules. But Bruen requires more than modern law enforcement preference. The state still has to explain why a broad ban on privately made firearms fits a historical tradition where private arms making and assembly were normal.

THE BIGGER PATTERN

Taken together, these laws show the direction Rhode Island has been moving. The state has not limited itself to punishing violent crime or illegal misuse. It has restricted common magazines, limited young adult access, imposed home storage rules, narrowed lawful hunting related conduct, blocked future acquisition of certain semiautomatic firearms, and criminalized privately made arms.

The 2026 bills build directly on that foundation. A state that has already banned magazines and future transfers of certain firearms now considers banning possession. A state that already restricts ammunition purchases by age now considers ammunition background checks for everyone. A state that already regulates storage and acquisition now considers mandatory training and insurance.

A constitutional right can be weakened one layer at a time. The citizen is told each law is limited, reasonable, and survivable. You can still own some guns. You can still use smaller magazines. You can still buy something else. You can still unlock the firearm. You can still wait. You can still comply.

That is not the test the Supreme Court laid out in Heller and Bruen. The question is not whether Rhode Island left behind some smaller version of the right. The question is whether the state can justify each restriction under the Constitution’s text, history, and tradition.

The next article in this series will examine Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island, the challenge to the 2022 magazine ban, and the danger of courts quoting Bruen while quietly returning to the same means testing Bruen rejected.