Gov. Dan McKee wins endorsements from gun-control advocates, touts recent legislation

PROVIDENCE – Gov. Dan McKee took his campaign to South Providence's Nonviolence Institute on Tuesday in a bid to bring attention to issues of gun violence and gun control.

As governor, McKee has signed three gun control bills into law and said he will seek to outlaw assault rifles next year.

Seeing an opening less than a month from the election, McKee has asked voters to think about issues of gun control and gun violence when they compare him with his Republican opponent, Ashley Kalus.

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In a meeting room at the institute, McKee received an endorsement from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence and drew praise from the chairwoman of the coalition's board, Sydney Montstream-Quas.

She cited new laws that have raised the minimum age for buying a gun from 18 to 21, prohibited the carrying of loaded rifles or shotguns in public and banned magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.

"My opponent would never have signed the bills that I have signed," McKee said, "and she could never advocate for the bills that are going to be on my desk in the spring."

A spokesman for Kalus, Matthew Hanrahan, said he wasn't prepared to comment on the proposed assault-rifle ban.

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Ashley Kalus' stance on gun laws

But he said Kalus supports the new law prohibiting the carrying of long guns in public.

Hanrahan said Kalus would support the new law raising the age for gun buyers if it had included an exemption for younger people who serve in the U.S. military.

But Kalus believes the Rhode Island law that has banned magazines with capacity greater than 10 rounds is unconstitutional, he said.

"It will turn 60,000 law-abiding citizens into felons overnight," said Hanrahan.

The authors of the limit were aware that a large number of guns sold in Rhode Island in the past had magazines exceeding 10 rounds.

The legal language that McKee signed into law in June provided a grace period. At that point, owners of the magazines had 180 days to modify the components, surrender them to police or transfer them to people in other states where they aren't illegal.

Some critics of the law, including some supporters of limiting magazine capacity, say the limit of 10 rounds is too low – that the state is inundated with magazines at the lower end of the scale and it would have been easier to ban higher capacity magazines.

"Candidly, the real question has always been, where do you set the limit," said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, who also received the coalition's endorsement. He faces Charles Calenda in the Nov. 8 general election.

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Coalition Against Gun Violence endorsements

Also receiving the coalition's endorsement were Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos; former Central Falls Mayor James Diossa, running for general treasurer; and Gregg Amore, who is running for secretary of state

They also drew support from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

One of that group's volunteers, Christine Bandoni, lauded Rhode Island as a state that has made progress.

"In states where elected officials have taken action to pass gun-safety laws, fewer people have died from gun violence," she said. "It's fact."

But gun violence continues to injure and kill, she said.

"We don't have to live like this and our children don't have to die like this," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Gov. Dan McKee has nod of Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence