Providence Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach
Ammunition on sale at the Competition Shooting Supplies store in Pawtucket.
PROVIDENCE -- The strangest bedfellows agree: Rhode Island has tougher gun laws than most other states.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gives RI top ratings for its gun laws. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds RI and other states with expansive gun laws also have lower rates of deaths from guns.
A lobbyist for the National Rifle Association cited RI's tough laws as reason legislators should turn their attention elsewhere.
But some see loopholes.
Rhode Island requires background checks for all gun sales -- but the checks don't review mental health records.
The state has restrictions on handguns, but not long guns -- which don't require a permit and can be openly carried nearly anywhere.
The attorney general's office has discretion in granting permits to carry concealed weapon, while police chiefs "shall issue" permits.