Stop there. You said it yourself. If someone's an adult US citizen, which would therefore include a non-resident adult US citizen, they may purchase a rifle or shotgun in RI.
This thread isn't about non-resident non-citizens. That's a different discussion.
If this were to go to court, RI courts would start with the version of the statute in place at the time of the triggering event. The courts wouldn't get into the history of the statute because Rhode Island General Assembly records are very sparse. There's typically the old versions of the statutes but no formal legislative record, absent an explicit legislative intent formulated inside a statute (see RIGL 1-3-3 for an example of the General Assembly expressing legislative intent).
Thank you very much for your efforts.
Thank you. I sincerely appreciate it. It was a frustrating effort and we had very little support from anyone. We were sadly naive enough to think Archer v McGarry was going to fix it, then we held out hope for Mosby v Devine And thought we won… boy were we wrong
. We underestimated the nonsense RI bureaucrats would play.
As far as the non-resident purchasing issue insofar as state law. I was just giving a legislative history for the backstory to why and/or was added. I have paper copies of RI gun laws going back to 1897 buried somewhere in the basement.
The reason FFLs sell long guns to out of state non-town permit holders and the reason the police don’t care is because they are misapplying the Last Antecedent Rule. This is a very common mistake in the legal world. If there was a comma before the and/or, then it would be legal. Since there is no comma, US Citizens and lawful residents both have to be residents.
In other words, “US Citizen, or a lawful resident of this state” would have a very different outcome from the current wording.
I’m aware that many FFLs still sell them. RI police just don’t understand gun laws. For example, before I had a town permit, I bought a handgun via private sale, I mailed the paperwork to the police department to the PD where the private sale took place and I waited 7 days before taking possession. The detective called the seller and said it wasn’t necessary as it was a private sale and “that’s why there are so many guns on the streets.“ Myself and the seller just laughed it off Because 11-47-35 and 35.2 absolutely apply to all firearm transfers, including private sales… but the PD never got the memo.
Even to this day, many RI cops don’t know that AG permit holders can openly carry. Former BCI management used to tell police Who would call them that it was legal. They finally have that on their website and they still get questions about it.
Because of many issues of misunderstanding statutes and poorly worded sections of the RIGL, many dealers and the police just assume it’s legal. Just as some FFLs waive the waiting period/RI paperwork for AG pistol permit holders even though it’s illegal for them to do it, they just assume it’s ok.
It’s common for the assembly to write poorly worded laws. For example, 11-47-18 still explicitly says the AG can issue Pistol permits to illegal aliens because they never repealed that sections reference to 11-47-7 when it was changed from non-US Citizens who resided in the state for less than 10 years to illegal aliens.
In closing, I wish it was legal for non-residents to buy in RI without needing a town permit; however, it’s due to the lack of one comma in that sentence (Last Antecedent Rule). I also think it would be asinine for the AG to ever target an FFL because the language is poorly worded and the Rule of Lenity. The state bureaucrats were too busy for years focusing on permit holders carrying in schools and now they are zeroed in on normal capacity magazines and scary looking rifles. I just don’t think this is on anyone’s radar and the average anti-2A state rep is too dumb to comprehend any of this stuff so there is thankfully no attention on this issue.