DOJ Revives Federal Firearm Rights Restoration After 30-Year Shutdown
For the first time in more than three decades, Americans who’ve lost their gun rights will have a federal way to try to get them back. Attorney General Todd Blanche has finalized a regulation reviving the long-dormant firearm-rights restoration process, according to AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
Here’s what it means in practice. If a past conviction or another disqualifier has kept you from legally owning a firearm, a formal application process is coming to ask the federal government to restore that right. It won’t be automatic. Plenty of offenses are effectively off the table. But the door that’s been shut since the early 1990s is opening again.
The signed rule has been transmitted to the Federal Register, though the DOJ cautions that the currently available text remains unofficial until formally published.
“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and the federal government should not permanently deprive Americans of a constitutional right without regard to whether they pose a danger to public safety,” Blanche said. “This rule establishes a rigorous, common-sense process that protects the public while giving deserving Americans a real path to restoration.”
Why the Program Sat Idle for 30 Years
Section 922(g) prohibits certain categories of people from possessing or receiving firearms or ammunition. That covers felons, domestic violence misdemeanants, unlawful drug users, fugitives, certain aliens, and others. Section 925(c) has long authorized the Attorney General to grant relief if an applicant shows they “will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety” and that relief “would not be contrary to the public interest.”
So the law technically allowed for restoration all along. The problem was funding. The ATF once administered the process by delegation, but Congress defunded it through appropriations riders starting in 1992, leaving it inoperative for over 30 years. DOJ withdrew the ATF delegation in March 2025 and published proposed criteria in July 2025. The Department says it fielded more than 15,500 comments, roughly 91% of them in favor of restoring a workable process, before finalizing the rule.
The program will now run through the Office of the Pardon Attorney rather than ATF, with the Attorney General keeping final decision authority.
When Applications Open
Don’t expect to file on day one. The rule takes effect 30 days after publication, but the rollout comes in stages. According to DOJ’s Federal Firearm Rights Restoration website, the Department will begin inviting candidates to apply at 30 days. At 75 days, the application opens to the public, capped at the first 5,000 applicants. At 120 days, DOJ accepts another 500 applicants and starts collecting the application fee. Anyone who thinks they’re a candidate should watch justice.gov/ffrr for eligibility details and instructions.
Who Gets Presumptively Disqualified
Not everyone qualifies, and relief is discretionary. The call rests with DOJ’s judgment inside the statutory standards. Some offenses are presumed permanent no’s. Those include violent felonies such as homicide, kidnapping, terrorism, and stalking; convictions involving brandishing or discharging a firearm; SORNA-registrable sex offenses that also trigger a § 922(g) prohibition; and felony-level domestic violence.
Other disqualifications are a waiting game. Drug trafficking convictions and misdemeanor domestic violence require at least 10 years after you’ve finished your sentence, including probation or supervised release. Other felony convictions require at least five years.
The rule lists additional presumptively ineligible statuses. Those include being a fugitive from justice, unlawfully present aliens and certain nonimmigrants, persons under qualifying domestic violence restraining orders, and unlawful users of or those addicted to controlled substances until the pattern of use ends.
The Marijuana Exception and Hemani
That last category, drug use, runs up against the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in United States v. Hemani. The Court held the government could not prosecute Ali Hemani under § 922(g)(3) based solely on evidence he regularly used marijuana while possessing a gun at home, and it rejected treating any regular user of a controlled substance as categorically dangerous. The justices described the ruling as narrow and declined to address addiction or present intoxication.
DOJ maintains its rule does not conflict with Hemani. In response to both the ruling and heavy public comment, it amended the final rule to create a marijuana exception within the drug-related presumption. In plain terms, that carve-out is meant to keep marijuana use alone from sinking an otherwise eligible applicant.
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