- [Dorthy] People are being shot and killed at alarming rates in cities across the country.

- [Reporter] Neighbors shot in Cleveland, Texas, and an elementary school in Nashville.

- 22 people are dead in multiple shootings in Lewiston, Maine.

- You can see a high powered assault style rifle with a large capacity magazine.

You could fire multiple rounds in quick succession, but also you don't have to reload as many times as you would with, for example, a pistol.

- Assault weapons certainly make mass killings far deadlier.

My name is James Allen Fox.

I'm a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.

I manage a database in collaboration with "USA Today" and the "Associated Press" of every incident with four or more victims of killed, not necessarily by gunfire, although 80% of the time it is with guns.

It includes over 560 mass killing since the year 2006.

Since 2013, 85% of shootings involving an assault weapon were an AR-15.

They are the weapon of choice, particularly for public mass shooters who are seeking to kill large numbers of individuals.

And because of its popularity, it's a weapon that's being produced and sold more often than others.

- When Covid first hit, when we compare the numbers from February, 2020 to March, 2020, Rhode Island had the highest percentage increase in the entire country of background checks.

My name is Sydney Monstream-Quas and I'm the board chair of Rhode Island Coalition against Gun Violence.

The gun lobby was instilling that fear that you need a gun to protect yourself.

That's a problem.

More guns in our community means more gun violence.

- I do not believe that more guns means more gun violence.

I actually believe the opposite.

My name is Brenda Jacob and I am the secretary and lobbyist for Rhode Island Revolver and Rifle Association.

I am a gun owner.

I do teaching and coaching, so I have rifles, I have handguns, (gun blasting) I have self-defense firearms that we use in our home.

I have quite a variety of firearms and I think that the reason that our crime rate is low, so low in this state and why we haven't had any of these, you know, tragedies happen is because the people do know that there's a lot of firearm owners out there, but if you wanna disarm honest citizens, then the criminals are always gonna have the upper hand.

So, because they are not gonna obey the law and it's gonna leave people defenseless.

- And some of the guns that they're getting off the street are terrifying.

They're just, they're just really scary weapons.

Sometimes they're, they're weapons of war.

They have no business being in the hands of civilians.

- A lot of people think that we are just, you know, flannel shirt knuckle, dragging rednecks.

A lot of times we're called gun nuts, which is completely not the case.

We go through a background check to get a firearm, not just locally, but we do federal background checks.

To be members of a gun club, you have to have a background check and that's every time we purchase a firearm or, you know, or every time we join a club.

- We're also living in a society right now where the level of anger that exists in every facet, it's creeped into every corner of our lives.

(mellow music) (flag flapping) - When we start to look at a right, such as our right to keep and bear arms, when we start to see that as something that we can restrict, and in this case clearly were an assault weapons ban to be passed, it would severely restrict, if not arguably eliminate the ability of Rhode Island to exercise their second Amendment rights.

We are then relegating those rights to privileges that the government can take and give at any time they want.

(mellow music) (gun blasting) - [Interviewer] You don't support a ban on AR-15s?

- No, the AR-15 is a very popular firearm because it's affordable.

They're also easier to operate for, especially for older people or females, youth because they're adjustable, they're more lightweight.

As a responsible gun owner, those are the traits I'm looking for.

- My job as a elected representative is to look out for my constituents.

This is a public health hazard.

It is, it exists, it's out there.

It has happened to other communities around the country and we're doing everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen here.

And in particular, Rhode Island, in not having assault weapons bans, becoming an outlier in New England.

Massachusetts has had one forever.

Connecticut has had one for a long time.

Right now we're this little corner of southeastern Massachusetts where you can buy your AR-15s, right?

So we're a source for New England and we don't want to be a source.

We want to create a zone in this area of the country where it's just hard to get ahold of one, it's illegal to possess one and they have very stiff penalties if you are convicted of having one.

- In the last set of data we got from 2021, there were no rifles used at all, let alone assault rifles used in Rhode Island to commit a murder, none, zero.

More people were killed with hands and feet in the state of Rhode Island in that year than with any sort of a rifle.

It's not going to have any impact on crime, which is the goal stated by the proponents.

- Rhode Island has the third lowest rate of gun deaths, which is terrific, but still over 50 people are dying per year from gun violence.

Still almost 200 people are wounded a year because of gun violence.

So even though we are one of the better states, we are still off the charts in terms of the number of people who are affected by gun violence killed, wounded, traumatized.

We know that regulating assault weapons decreases gun violence and also decreases the likelihood of mass shootings.

- Well, it will have an impact on is the hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders who every day exercise their legally protected rights to enjoy the Second Amendment and it will create criminals out of people who otherwise are not.

- I disagree with him on the statement.

You know, the, basically the Second Amendment is real.

It's black letter law, it exists.

People have the right to bear arms, but it's not an unrestricted right to bear arms.

All the other amendments in the Bill of Rights are subject to reasonable regulation.

We can have a Second Amendment that allows people to protect their homes, protect themselves through the use of firearms just like the founders intended and the Supreme Court has held.

But we don't need to give them tanks, and bazookas, and landmines and assault weapons to do it with.

- As a country as a whole there's a whole lot of people that do not live within, you know, five minutes of a police station.

You know, we have the right to defend ourselves and our property.

- If you eliminate firearm ownership from the public, then you can do whatever you please including killing millions of citizens.

That's what the Second Amendment is meant to stop.

It's not, it's not there to allow me to shoot somebody who's trying to get into my house, although that is one of the benefits and one of the purposes.

It's not there so I can shoot ducks.

It's there so I can shoot tyrants.

That's what it's about.

We in the state of Rhode Island have some of the strictest, depending on how you measure it, fourth or fifth, strictest firearm related laws in the nation.

My position is that it's not the weapon that makes people do the crime.

The flaws with that person's personality or mental health that makes them want to do the crime.

- Probably the most prominent misconception about mass killings is the idea that they're all seriously mentally ill.

In fact, few of the 15% of mass killers are psychotic.

Many of them are depressed.

After all, someone who's very happy and satisfied with their life doesn't go on our shooting rampage.

When people talk about let's expand mental health services, we should do that for the millions of Americans who could benefit.

- Let's talk about you possibly coming into the BH Link.

- But mass killers generally won't take you up on that offer, because they don't think there's anything wrong with them.

(mellow music) - There will always be illegal and illicit firearms out there and people who have the intent to harm others using a firearm in a crime are not gonna stop to obey an assault weapons ban that we pass in the legislature.

It's just silly to even think that.

- States that have permits to purchase, those are much more thorough background checks than the traditional FBI background check have significantly lower rates of mass shootings.

And then states that have bans on large capacity magazines, those states have fewer casualties, deaths and injuries when there is a mass shooting.

So there are things that we can do.

The question is whether we will.

- There are politicians who prioritize their power over public health and over gun violence prevention and I think those legislators will have blood on their hands and do have blood on their hands.

- It's roughly 4.8 million firearms manufactured in this country a year, and there's multiple kinds of firearms that are like an AR-15.

Putting bans on them now is not gonna stop a criminal from getting their hands on them.

Why should I have to give up my firearm that I legally purchased because a criminal did a crime?

- This is a topic that divides legislators.

There are some folks in the general assembly who don't wanna see this bill come to a vote and it's a matter of pulling the right political levers to try to get that bill to the floor for a vote.

So the bill will be reintroduced.

- We've put this bill in for years on end and this year... - [Jason] And it will go to committee again.

It will get a new hearing, right, where people can come and testify.

- Tonight in favor of house bill 5300.

- The benefits of an armed civilian population cannot be overlooked.

- And maybe some people will come in and say, fix this, fix that, and then the work will begin anew to try to get the bill to the floor for a vote.

But it is only a matter of time because it is going to come to the floor at some point in the near future and it's gonna get a vote.

Either next year or perhaps after the next election.

- This is not a quick fix.

This is something that everybody needs to come together.

We need to start from the bottom and work our way up and rebuild the foundation.

(gun blasting)