August 6, 2025 – A federal court in Rhode Island recently issued a ruling in the case of O’Neil v. Neronha upholding the state’s open carry permitting scheme, which requires residents to demonstrate a “proper showing of need” to obtain an open-carry firearm permit.
A coalition of Rhode Island gun owners filed suit in 2023, challenging the constitutionality of R.I. Gen. Laws § 11-47-18(a), a provision of the Rhode Island Firearms Act which vests the State Attorney General with sole discretion to issue “unrestricted” open-carry permits only “upon a proper showing of need.” Each of the plaintiffs’ 2021 renewal applications for “unrestricted” open-carry permits were denied by the Attorney General on the grounds that they did not “need” them because they already had restricted concealed-carry permits. The plaintiffs argued this requirement violated their Second Amendment rights, particularly under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision striking down New York’s permitting scheme in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). The Plaintiffs also argued that the process for obtaining “unrestricted” open-carry permits violated their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Rhode Island Constitution.
The District Court granted the State’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the lawsuit, holding that the unrestricted open-carry permit is a privilege under state law, not a constitutionally protected right. The District Court further noted that the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling did not mandate that states allow open carry. The District Court stated, “while Bruen held that the Second Amendment’s plain text protects ‘carrying handguns publicly for self-defense,’ it did not go so far as to declare that the text requires open carry.” The court then noted that even if open-carry is protected by the Second Amendment, Rhode Island’s regulatory scheme is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, thus it would pass Bruen’s two-step test. In fact, in support of this conclusion, the court cited to the Bruen decision itself, and the Supreme Court’s language that “[t]he historical evidence from antebellum America does demonstrate that the manner of public carry was subject to reasonable regulation.”
The District Court’s decision reaffirms the Attorney General’s discretion to deny open-carry permits absent a “proper showing of need.” However, counsel for the plaintiffs has announced plans to appeal, stating that the District Court’s ruling is “not in line with the Bruen decision.” Any such appeal will face an uphill battle as the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has historically been unfriendly to Second Amendment proponents and the firearms industry as a whole.
Renzulli Law Firm will continue to monitor the challenges to this law, related litigation, and its potential impacts. If you have any questions about laws regulating firearm licensing requirements, please contact John F. Renzulli or Christopher Renzulli.