08/31/2026
Gun Purchases Surge as Violent Crime Falls in Rhode Island’s Largest Cities
Violent crime fell sharply across the United States in 2025, including major reductions in Providence and Pawtucket, while Rhode Island residents continued adding thousands of fi****ms to civilian hands. By 2026, fi***rm purchasing accelerated dramatically as residents rushed to buy guns before the state’s new prohibited fi****ms sales ban took effect July 1. Yet fi***rm related violent crime in Providence continued to decline.
The FBI reported violent crime nationwide fell 9.3% in 2025, the largest one year decline in the violent crime rate since national estimates began in 1936. Murder fell 18.1%, robbery fell 18.5%, r**e fell 7.6%, and aggravated assault fell 7.2%. Preliminary FBI numbers for the first half of 2026 show the decline continuing, with violent crime down another 10.6% nationally and murder down 23%.
Rhode Island’s largest cities followed much of that trend. Providence recorded 661 violent crimes in 2025, down 8% from 722 in 2024. Homicides fell from 11 to four, fi***rm homicides fell from seven to three, and robberies involving fi****ms fell from 41 to 19.
Pawtucket saw a similar decline. Murder, r**e, robbery and aggravated assault combined fell from 230 reported offenses in 2024 to 173 in 2025, a reduction of approximately 25%.
Providence’s preliminary numbers through June 28, 2026 show violent crime essentially holding at its already reduced level, up just 2% from the same period in 2025 and still 12% below the five year average. More notably, robberies involving fi****ms fell another 9%, while aggravated assaults involving fi****ms fell 16%.
At the same time, Rhode Islanders were buying more guns. FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System data show 51,369 Rhode Island checks during the extraordinary COVID buying surge of 2020. Activity gradually declined afterward, reaching 24,444 checks in 2024, before reversing direction. Rhode Island recorded 31,153 checks in 2025, an increase of about 27%.
Then came 2026. During just the first six months of the year, Rhode Island recorded 26,307 NICS checks, compared with 14,814 during the same period in 2025, an increase of nearly 78%. In six months, the state had already recorded about 84% as many checks as it had during all of 2025.
NICS checks are not the same thing as fi***rm sales. A background check can result in no purchase, one fi***rm being purchased, or several fi****ms being purchased in the same transaction. But the numbers provide a clear measure of purchasing activity, and completed sales continually add fi****ms to the existing civilian supply. A slower purchasing year does not mean fewer guns are in civilian hands. It means that supply is increasing more slowly.
These numbers cannot be explained entirely by existing gun owners, adding to private collections. During the COVID surge, Rhode Island gun dealers reported large numbers of first time buyers. Applications for Rhode Island handgun safety “blue cards” jumped from 3,702 in 2019 to 12,485 in 2020. Because these cards do not expire, the surge provided another indication that thousands of new people were entering fi***rm ownership. Dealers again reported first time buyers during the 2026 rush ahead of the state sales ban.
Rhode Island has also experienced several highly visible shootings, including Brown University, the Pawtucket ice rink and the Providence pop-up party. None establishes a connection between the recent surge in lawful fi***rm purchasing and those attacks. The fi****ms used at Brown and Pawtucket were purchased years earlier, before the 2025 and 2026 Rhode Island purchasing surge. The alleged Providence pop-up shooters were 19, too young to have legally purchased their handguns themselves.
These numbers do not prove that growing gun ownership causes violent crime to fall. Unlike what some people would like us to believe; correlation is not causation. But they do present a problem for the opposite categorical argument. Rhode Island continued adding fi****ms and new fi***rm owners while violent crime declined. When purchasing accelerated sharply again in 2025 and 2026, fi***rm related violent crime in Providence did not rise with it.
During this period, the two trends moved in opposite directions, proving that more guns does not automatically mean more violent crime.
