Merely nine months after signing its wide-sweeping gun ban into effect in 2025, the Rhode Island legislature is now moving to end the grandfather clause protecting previously registered weapons, creating de facto felons of those gun owners with the stroke of a pen.
The law underscores the point that registrations are nearly always enacted as tools for the state to impose bans after the fact – something that gun rights groups proverbially shouted from the rooftops last year.
H8073, introduced on February 27, now adds “possession” of any of the previously prohibited firearms identified in the ban as a crime, effective July 1, 2026, punishable by imprisonment of up to 10 years, a fine up to $10,000, and forfeiture of the prohibited firearm.
Rhode Island legislators clearly envisioned this follow-up move, giving no deference to the protected status assigned in the previous bill, serving as a warning to citizens in other states who may move to do the same.
As with all gun control bills, exemptions are carved out for law enforcement, a fact that is being leveraged in states like West Virginia, which is moving to use those exemptions to arm its citizens with federally-regulated machine guns, as we reported last week.
