A long-running effort to require the secure storage of guns — cited by supporters as a way to reduce harm and reviled by opponents as an infringement of personal rights — came to a conclusion as Gov. Dan McKee signed the measure into law Thursday to the delight of gun safety advocates.
The legislation sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Pam Lauria (D-Barrington) and in the House by state Rep. Justine Caldwell (D-East Greenwich) has been debated at the Statehouse for more than 10 years.
The measure requires firearm owners to store their guns with a tamper-resistant lock or in a locked container. Violators can receive a $250 fine for the first offense, $1,000 for the second, and up to six months in prison for a third violation.
Lauria, a former trauma nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, said she has many former colleagues who witnessed the toll of gun violence. She compared safe storage to steps taken to reduce the effect of cancer in children and car accidents.
“We have required seatbelts, airbags and other collision protections in vehicles, because not doing everything we can to prevent kids from dying from car accidents is unacceptable,” she said. “But it’s gun violence, not cancer and not car accidents, that are the number one leading cause of death for children.”
Lawmakers, state officials and gun safety advocates, wearing their signature colors of orange and red, crowded into a signing ceremony at the Statehouse to cheer McKee’s placement of his imprimatur on the legislation. They included Patti Alley of South Kingstown, whose sister Allyson used an unsecured gun to take her own life.
Guns are often used in suicide, and supporters of safe storage say the time needed to free a weapon from restraints could make a meaningful difference in reducing that.
Caldwell recalled how, as a freshman lawmaker six years ago, she introduced three gun-related bills, including safe storage. Like-minded people from out of state mistakenly thought passing the bills would be easy, she said, since Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature.
Over time, though, as the General Assembly has moved somewhat to the left, Democrats who opposed new gun restrictions became fewer in number, and the state has adopted some gun safety measures.
“We raised the legal age to buy firearms and ammunition in Rhode Island,” McKee noted. “We banned large-capacity magazines. We stopped people from buying [a] gun for others who can’t legally own them, made sure only law enforcement officers could bring firearms to school property, and prohibited open carry of a loaded rifle and a shotgun in public.”
While no single measure is a cure-all, McKee said, “each one of these pieces that we move on and we get approved only make our families, the communities we live in and the state safer.”
Opponents of safe storage express concern that securing a gun could undercut a person’s ability to defend themselves against an intruder in their home. They fiercely opposed the measure for years, and say the penalties for violators are inconsistent with traditional gun rights.
Secretary of State Gregg Amore said Caldwell endured a lot while fighting for measures she believes will reduce gun violence.
“She has been harassed and tormented and [received] emails that have been vicious, and things said about her and her family,” he said. “And through it all, she held her head high, she kept moving toward the goal, she never backed down and here she is today, making Rhode Island a safer place.”
One measure that has been met with resistance is a proposed ban on new sales of semi-automatic military-style rifles. The main obstacle is Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, who has said he believes the issue should be addressed on a federal basis.
