It’s a shame to see any state falling into the trap of gun control, but it’s even more disappointing when that state is one of our original Thirteen Colonies—a colony that declared independence and went to war over the British government’s unilateral attempt to disarm our forefathers.
Rhode Island state senators managed to pass a magazine ban that was initially slated to die in committee. The political maneuvering behind the bill’s passage stood in contrast with hundreds of gun rights supporters who filled the statehouse to publicly oppose it.
The disappointment doesn’t end there, as the Rhode Island Senate ultimately sent three new gun control bills to the governor: the ban on so-called “high-capacity” magazines, as well as broad restrictions on open carry, and a bill to raise the minimum age for purchasing guns and ammunition from 18 to 21.
All three bills are deeply immoral for disarming peaceable Americans and leaving them at the mercy of violent criminals, and functionally unconstitutional for violating our constitutionally protected natural right of self-defense. No matter: Governor McKee signed them into law this past Tuesday.
But now, with the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a court will likely subject these laws to an intense analysis of their foundation in the historical tradition of our Nation.
Rhode Island will have to affirmatively demonstrate that these three laws are firmly grounded in the original meaning of the Second Amendment, as ratified in 1791, and that these laws have historical antecedents that support their constitutionality.
That’s not an argument gun control advocates want to have, because the historical record is not on their side.
Instead of focusing on the actual basis of the Second Amendment, proponents of the bills offered several absurd arguments “justifying” these gun control laws.
Notably, Senator Cynthia Coyne demonstrated either appalling ignorance or sheer bad faith when she said in a prepared statement that “high-capacity magazines have no legitimate purpose for hunting or self-defense.”
Senator Coyne believes she has the power to dictate how many rounds you need in order to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones in the event of a surprise attack by armed aggressors. But no politician has that power—period.
And Sen. Coyne is simply wrong to claim these magazines have no self-defense value. Self-defense is exactly why millions of peaceable Americans own these magazines, which are legal in over 40 states.
Meanwhile, Senator Maryellen Goodwin argued for Rhode Island’s new age restrictions, claiming it is “well-settled science that teenage and post-teenage brains are still developing . . . [W]e shouldn’t be selling lethal weapons to people who we’ve decided are not old enough to buy cigarettes or beer.”
First, not everyone is in favor of those age limits on tobacco and beer, and everyone must acknowledge that they are widely flouted. Age restrictions on guns will be, too.
But more to the point, though, is Senator Goodwyn willing to follow through on her own logic and raise the age for driving, marriage, military service, and voting to 21? Those activities can be at least as consequential as the exercise of self-defense rights.
But of course, no one is proposing anything like that, because this isn’t about brain development. This is about taking away guns.
Regarding the ban on the open carry of shotguns and rifles (Rhode Island already bans the open carry of handguns), Representative Leonela Felix laid her anti-gun cards on the table in stating, “No one should be walking around our communities with a loaded weapon.”
Instead of limiting herself to the specific provision of the bill—a ban on the open carry of loaded rifles and shotguns in public—Rep. Felix made it clear that she does not believe in the individual, natural right of self-defense as protected by the Second Amendment. She does not believe that peaceable Americans have the right to carry the tools to defend their lives and their communities in public.
Unfortunately for Rep. Felix, this right—a natural right that precedes the Constitution—is exactly what the Supreme Court upheld in the Bruen decision. The Court ruled that “nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms.”
The Court made it clear, beyond question, that self-defense rights exist in public. After the Bruen decision, Rhode Island can no longer expect federal judges to automatically uphold laws like their new carry ban based on vague “public safety” grounds.
Likewise, age limits and magazine bans do not square up with Bruen’s requirement that gun laws be “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The average age of soldiers in the Continental Army was between 18 and 20—an inconvenient historical fact for age restriction proponents. Many of these soldiers brought their own guns to the fight.
And the precursors of today’s standard-capacity magazines were in use well before our nation’s Founding—more than a decade before adoption of the Bill of Rights, Joseph Belton demonstrated a 16-round repeating rifle to members of the Continental Congress. These devices, and their modern counterparts, are constitutionally protected.
While Rhode Island’s new gun control measures have become law for the time being, it will be interesting to see whether they survive federal constitutional challenges. One such case already has been filed, and there may be more.
For now—especially in light of the Bruen decision—the arguments being offered for these laws are far from impressive.
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Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the director of Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.
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