Both sides converge on the State House as RI gun bill hearings get underway

PROVIDENCE − The Rhode Island State House was filled Monday with armies of dueling warriors in the Rhode Island gun debate.

From gun rights advocates in their yellow T-shirts came this familiar battle cry: Enforce the laws we already have, don't tread on the rights of "law-abiding citizens."

From gun control advocates in their red Moms Demand Action tees came this counter-argument: Rhode Island laws do not go far enough to avert the kind of violence that turned a Connecticut elementary school, and more recently a Nashville grade school, into killing fields.

Amid the fusillade of legal arguments, the mother and cousin of 16-year-old Dillon Viens begged the lawmakers to require the safe storage of guns, and make violations a felony.

Dillon was a freshman at William M. Davies Jr. Career and Technical High School when he died, the victim of what police called an accidental shooting at a friend's house in Johnston in February 2022. His death lead to the arrest of a Johnston man on four misdemeanor counts of violating state law on the safe storage of firearms.

Under current Rhode Island law, a gun owner is criminally liable only if a child gets access to and discharges a gun causing injury to himself or herself or others. By way of comparison, Massachusetts requires that all guns must be stored in a locked container or equipped with a locking device whenever not in active use.

"His friend's uncle had four guns that weren't locked up at the house," Dillon's 15-year-old cousin Eli Houle, told the House Judiciary Committee. "We don't want other families to go through the tragedy that we had to experience and it is such an easily preventable thing if we just lock up guns."

Dillon's mother, Rhonda Brewster's voice broke as she described what happened to her son, "the negligence that was faced in this home by having those weapons available...,and accessible to a teenager who was careless in... parading the guns around and showing them off to his friends because he thought that that was the right thing to do, which ended in taking a life."

She asked the lawmakers to pass more stringent storeage requirements "to honor my son and our family as we continue to fight for justice for what is right in protecting our children's and our lives."

"Even even when we think people are [being] responsible ... We don't know what's happening in everyone's lives... what they [think] responsible means," said the lead sponsor, Rep. Justine Caldwell, after another plea for a stricter safe storage law from the sister of a 37-year-old who died by gun suicide

Lawmakers on opposing sides disagreed on the wisdom of even attempting an "assault weapons" ban when the legal landscape around guns is unsettled.

House GOP leader Michael Chippendale told colleagues it would be "reckless" and "throwing taxpayer money away" to pass a law the state would have to defend and that would almost certainly be overturned.

But Rep. Jason Knight, the lead sponsor of H5300, the proposed ban on rapid-fire "assault weapons," read aloud a letter from Attorney General Peter Neronha assuring legislators that: "We are confident that this legislation is constitutional and that we are prepared to defend any challenges that may arise.

"While I recognize that there is a pending case in the First Circuit addressing the constitutionality of the high-capacity magazine ban [passed last year], that pending litigation should not prevent the General Assembly from advancing this important legislation," Neronha wrote.

Added Knight, D-Barrington: "The law may change, but that does not prevent us ... from doing everything we reasonably can ... to ward off the specter of a mass shooting. I just do not want to be the legislator who wakes up one morning after something, God forbid, awful happened in Rhode Island and be a part of a body that didn't do everything it possibly could."

After the lawmakers argued among themselves, South Kingstown Councilwoman Patricia Alley recounted the circumstances surrounding her late sister, Allyson Dosreis' 2020 death by suicide, at age 37, with a gun left by a boyfriend − a firearms safety instructor for the state police − where it was easily accessible.

"Right now, Rhode Island's gun storage law addresses only situations where kids who are 16 or under access a gun and hurt themselves or somebody else with them. That didn't protect my sister and it did nothing to hold her partner accountable," Alley said.

"Ultimately, her partner was not held accountable and that is just playing wrong," she said Monday.

"I believe that if my sister had not been able to access the loaded gun early on the morning of June 26, 2020, she would likely be alive today," Alley told lawmakers in 2021 and again on Monday.

The gun-rights lobby brought in Maj Toure, a Black gun-rights activist from Philadelphia, who told lawmakers that gun restrictions are inherently "racist" because they limit the ability of people in the highest-crime areas to defend themselves "against criminals and potential tyrants."

"We do the work in areas that some people would like to be unarmed," he said.

Gun-rights lawyer Frank Saccocco recited a rundown of legal challenges pending − and guaranteed − if the lawmakers attempt any further restrictions on gun ownership.

"As soon as it passes, we are going to litigate that," he said of the proposed safe firearms storage requirements, which he contended would leave gun owners defenseless in the face of a home invasion, for example. By way of comparison, he said, someone not wearing a seat belt in a car "wouldn't have time to go 'wait a minute, hold on, stop ... I'm about to have an accident.'"

Students among those demanding action

Among the groups expected at the State House were students, including one — and maybe more — of the Barrington High School students who were forced back to distance learning in late 2021 while authorities investigated a threat in a girls’ bathroom stall.

It read: "I am shooting up the school on 12/21/21 with my dads [sic] pistol." The Barrington police chief urged parents to secure their guns as a precaution.

In a letter to the lawmakers, 16-year-old Henry Schultz of Barrington asked the lawmakers to "take a moment to think about what you were like when you were my age — a sophomore in high school ... [who] enjoyed going to see your favorite band ... a big sporting event with your family ... [or] just liked hanging out with your friends at the mall or movie theater.

"For people my age, all of these places now have an undercurrent of fear and anxiety because of the chance of a mass shooting, which is so often done by a troubled person armed with a military-style assault weapon," Schultz wrote on behalf of Students Demand Action.

More: This year's battle over RI gun-control bills to get underway

Annual gun crimes report at the center of arguments

The opposing sides agreed in 2018 on the potential value of pinpointing the number of crimes in Rhode Island that involve a gun, the type of gun used, and the outcome of each of those cases

Among the highlights of this year's report by Attorney General Peter Neronha: During 2022, 547 gun-related cases were filed, the vast majority (486) of them in Providence County.

Of the 416 cases that were wrapped up last year by trial, plea or dismissal,192 resulted in prison sentences. Of those who were sentenced to prison, 11 were sentenced to terms over 10 years, 43 were sentenced to terms between 5 and 10 years, others received lighter sentences and 96 received suspended sentences.

"I hope that both sides make use of that," Craven, a co-sponsor of the bills to ban "assault weapons" and impose safe storage requirements on firearms, akin to what Massachusetts has.

More: AG's office releases annual Rhode Island gun crime report. Here's what it says.

What gun bills are being heard?

The six-page House Judiciary Committee agenda includes:

∎House Bill 5300 to ban "the possession, sale, and transfer of assault weapons. Possession of assault weapons owned on the effective date of this act would be 'grandfathered.'"

In his State of the State address in January, Gov. Dan McKee hailed passage of an assault weapons ban as one of his top priorities for the year. At last count, the House sponsor, Jason Knight, said he had 41 co-sponsors in the 75-member House.

∎House Bill 5367 to prohibit the operation of an outdoor gun range within one mile or closer of any K-12 schools. Among the opponents: the chief of the Cranston police.

∎House Bill 5434 to require the safe storage of firearms, as Massachusetts does, and provide civil penalties and criminal penalties for violations.

∎House Bill 5045 would allow "those persons with concealed carry permits issued by other states to carry ... weapons in Rhode Island" provided their states reciprocate.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Proposed new RI gun laws heard at State House, including assault weapon ban