Rhode Island’s Democratic-controlled state House on Friday approved legislation that would ban the sale and manufacturing of many semiautomatic rifles commonly referred to as assault weapons.

While fully automatic weapons, such as machine guns, are already illegal in Rhode Island, the Assault Weapons Ban Act of 2025 (H5436) aims to prohibit the purchase, sale, manufacturing, and possession of certain weapons, including semi-automatic shotguns, rifles and pistols.

House Speaker Shekarchi says he supports the concept but the House is working on a possible amendment

Sen. Mark McKenney, a Warwick Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Rules, led a successful push for rules revisions that will requires the Senate to publish online any written testimony related to bills. The rules change, mirroring a similar change made by the House four years ago, has been pushed for by good government groups and media members without success until Sen. McKenney successfully persuaded naysayers to come around. 

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Mark McKenney (D-Warwick) was unanimously approved by the state Senate Finance Committee to create a Warwick School Budget Commission. “I certainly did not want to put it in, and I would prefer not to be here,” McKenney said. “It has been my hope that in the time it’s taken for this to move to this point, that the School Department can address the situation adequately. Unfortunately, there’s a serious lack of confidence that an adequate solution can be reached in-house, and that’s why we’re here.”

Rhode Island joins nearly 20 states, counties and municipalities across the country that now provide medical debt relief

“Our health care system is in critical condition,” Senate President Ruggerio said as legislators call for eliminating medical debt, retaining primary care doctors, and ensuring drugs are affordable.

The legislation draws a new line for Rhode Islanders’ constitutional rights to access the shore, but it will likely face legal challenges

“No one should become trapped in a spiral of debt — with the heavy weight of stress that debt brings — simply because they get sick. Medical debt is a danger for public health, it holds back our economy, and it prevents individuals and families from achieving financial security.”’

The state Supreme Court upheld the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act, passed in 2019 to safeguard abortion rights in Rhode Island. The high court upheld Superior Court Judge Melissa E. Darigan’s November 2019 dismissal of a challenge to the law brought by the advocacy group Catholics for Life and several other activists.