Rhode Island generally prohibits the manufacture, sale, purchase, or possession of a machine gun.1 The state Attorney General may, however, issue to any person, firm, or corporation engaged in manufacturing in the state a license or permit to manufacture and sell machine guns and any or all machine gun parts.2
In 2018, Rhode Island also enacted a law that makes it an offense to convert a semiautomatic firearm to fire as a fully automatic firearm.3
This new law also prohibits possession of certain devices intended to attach to a semiautomatic firearm to increase the weapon’s rate of fire, such as bump stocks, trigger cranks, and binary triggers, as well as any other device that, when attached to a semiautomatic weapon, “allows full automatic fire.”4
Federal law requires machine guns to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), and generally prohibits the transfer or possession of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986.5
See our Machine Guns and Automatic Firearms policy summary for a comprehensive discussion of this issue.