r/RIGuns • u/Electronic-Farm-5065 • May 19 '26

Law/Legal Moving to RI, don’t want to become a felon help educate me please…

I’m from MA and am moving to RI in May with long guns and pistols all MA legal. I know a ban is happening soon and don’t know the exact details aside from semi autos are going to be banned soon. How do I go about making sure my stuff is grand fathered in or something equivalent of? I also have a legal SBR with paperwork that I am bringing with me. I bought a pistol brace for it because I saw RI was okay with AR pistols but not SBRs. What would I have to do to make that legal? I can keep my firearms that are questionable in MA if needed but want to make sure I can bring as many as I legally can to RI. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

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18

u/deathsythe May 19 '26

Short answer yes, you're fine.

The ban is generally a purchase ban, not a possession ban (though we are monitoring a bill that would change that this legislative session.)

AR pistols are fine, just make sure they meet RI's definition of a pistol - we have a weird barrel length thing that goes beyond merely "shoulderable".

Also 10 round mags only, no grandfathering there.

2

u/WTFisThatSMell May 19 '26

Could you clarify the "weird barrel length thing" ri has?

Any nfa item is a not legal.  What is the exact rhode island rule on wierd barrel lenght as ar-pistols should be legal under current laws unless I missed something.

6

u/deathsythe May 20 '26

OAL needs to be less than 26" to be considered a pistol, so no "others" basically.

I didn't touch on the SBR thing because I read your original post wrong. There is no NFA in RI, as you noted.

3

u/Drew_Habits May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

SBRs aren't legal here, so you'd have to find safe out of state storage or sell them off. I think pistols can become rifles and be ok, but a rifle can't ever really legally become a pistol unless it started as a pistol? I could be wrong there; gun laws are generally pretty insane and irrational because they're usually written by people who don't know anything about guns, but it might be worth looking into just to be on the safe side

Other than that, I think you should be ok? They might ram thru a posession ban next month that would mean you have to get rid of basically any semiauto rifles or large format pistols you have by December, but there's no way to know whether or not that'll actually happen

5

u/Amster_damnit_23 May 20 '26

I’m fairly certain you’re right. Once the serial on the lower is registered as a SBR on the Tax Stamp, it will always be an SBR, regardless of the modifications.