Does Rhode Island Have an Assault Weapons Ban?

Rhode Island General Laws chapter 11-47.2 took effect July 1, 2026 and uses the term prohibited firearm. Section 11-47.2-1 defines covered semiautomatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns through model, magazine-system, fixed-capacity, overall-length, and feature branches.

Section 11-47.2-2 addresses manufacture, sale, offer for sale, transfer, and purchase. Its limited exceptions allow specified dealer, law-enforcement, and out-of-state dispositions; they do not create a general in-state private-transfer route.

There has been no federal assault weapons ban since the 1994 ban expired in 2004; no feature restrictions apply federally to semi-automatic rifles or pistols. The 2023 ATF pistol-brace rule was vacated nationwide and is not enforced, but federal SBR classification for a brace-equipped firearm still turns on whether the specific weapon is designed and intended to be fired from the shoulder. Cargill v. Garland (2024) made bump stocks federally legal. Feature bans are entirely a matter of state law.

Scope: State laws restricting semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns by configuration features: threaded barrels, pistol grips, folding or telescoping stocks, flash suppressors, forward grips, and similar. Magazine capacity limits are tracked as a separate class.