To the editor:

Rhode Island’s legislature is set to pass a law that puts you and your family in danger.

The bill — the “Assault Weapons Ban of 2025” — would make it illegal to own many if not most of the firearms that Rhode Islanders have used for decades to protect themselves and their loved ones against violent crime. 

Backers of this bill claim so-called “assault weapons” are a major factor in homicides and if they were banned from public ownership, we would all be safer. Not true. The facts make it clear that passage of this bill would put Rhode Islanders at greater risk.

Gun control activists and politicians pushing this bill are either misinformed or purposely not telling the truth. For starters, the firearms they want to prevent you from owning are not "assault weapons." Those are machine guns, which fire rapidly as long as the tigger is pressed. Ownership of automatic firearms has been essentially illegal in Rhode Island for years. This bill would ban many if not most semiautomatic firearms, which have been owned by the public since the late 1800s. 

Gun control activists consciously chose to falsely call these firearms “assault weapons” to scare the public to back banning them. And they title the bill an assault weapons ban to mask the fact that it would eliminate public ownership of most modern rifles. This is a deceitful tactic they wouldn’t need to use if facts supported their position.

The rifles they want to eliminate are used in less than three percent of homicides. Career criminals and urban gangs commit the vast majority of homicides. They almost never use the firearms this bill bans. And will criminals pay any attention to a law banning their use? 

Connecticut and New York State have had “assault weapons” bans—similar to the one proposed in Rhode Island—for years. According to studies and newspaper articles, fewer than 15 percent of owners of banned firearms in those states have obeyed the law to turn in or register them. There’s no reason to expect Rhode Islanders’ compliance to be any better. Why are we spending all this valuable legislative time on a bill that is a clear failure in other states? Shouldn’t consciences legislators know this bill hasn’t worked? Or don’t they care because even though the law is ineffective, supporting it gets them votes?

Gun control activists claim the national “assault weapons” ban from 1994 to 2024 reduced homicides. The majority of credible studies to determine the ban’s effectiveness could find no proof it did. 

All we ever hear from gun control advocates is about the illegal use of firearms. They never mention that between 500,000 and 3 million times a year guns are used defensively for protection, according to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They never mention that the firearms they want to ban are very popular for home protection. Many women like them because they have a light recoil and are easy to operate. 

Jailed criminals say they fear armed civilians more than police. They avoid police but can be surprised by an armed private citizen.

If you want to keep your option to protect yourself and your loved ones as you see fit, contact your legislators. Tell them if they support the “assault weapons” ban, you won’t support them for reelection.

For the name and contact information for your legislators, click on: https://vote.sos.ri.gov/Home/PollingPlaces.

David Huth

Portsmouth