While the Supreme Court has finally agreed to hear a challenge to an assault weapons ban, there's only so much good it's going to do in the short term. Virginia's assault weapon ban was set to go into effect today before a judge stopped it, but it wasn't the only place trying that kind of thing.
Rhode Island's law goes into effect today as well.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of Rhode Islanders were making sure to stock up on their AR-15s and such ahead of time.
Rhode Island's new assault weapons ban takes effect Wednesday, prohibiting the sale, purchase and transfer of certain semiautomatic firearms with specified military-style features, including many AR-15- and AK-style rifles.
At Surplus Provisions & Firearms in Warwick, customers lined up Tuesday to pick up firearms before the midnight deadline.
"We have people that had started to line up an hour before we opened this morning and an hour before we opened yesterday and throughout the weekend, just to come in and pick up the firearms," co-owner Tonya Pereira said. "If they don't pick up the firearms today by 11:59 p.m., if they are not legally in their possession, then our hands are tied and there's no transfer of the firearm that can happen."
The law allows people who already legally own firearms covered by the ban to keep them but prohibits future sales, purchases and transfers.
Pereira said sales began increasing after Gov. Dan McKee signed the legislation in June, with demand accelerating in recent months.
Not terribly surprising, really.
See, there are a lot of people who think about getting a so-called assault weapon in the abstract, but often never act on it because they figure they can always do it later. When a ban comes, though, there's an immediacy that prompts people to go out and buy one, even if they might never have otherwise. Now, there is no tomorrow, so they flock to the gun stores to get one before they lose the chance forever.
It's kind of funny how that works out, though, because the ban is intended to reduce the number of these guns in private hands in the future, but they create a massive spike in ownership right away, and since guns aren't exactly disposable tissues, they'll stick around for a good long time.
Whether any would-be buyers decided to stay home knowing that SCOTUS would hear the case and likely overturn every assault weapon ban in the country is undetermined, but I doubt it. While I'm confident of how the Supreme Court will rule in this case, as the birthright citizenship case showed us, you can't take anything for granted with the high court.
I hate it for people in Rhode Island, though. Especially since the state already tried to ban previously grandfathered weapons, which means they'll likely do it all over again.
At least until/unless the Supreme Court steps up first, knocks the bans down once and for all, and this time, leaves no wiggle room for states to try to get around the ruling like has happened with Bruen and is now happening after the Wolford decision struck down the so-called vampire rule that made every business a gun-free zone by default.
