On March 20 of this year, the Justice Department announced its intention to revive the long-dormant administrative process for restoring federal firearm rights lost because of a criminal conviction. It did not explain how it intended to do this.

We have now learned more about how the revived federal firearm restoration process will work.

The DOJ budget for FY 2026 published on June 13 confirms that, while a number of departmental components will be reduced or phased out entirely, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has an entirely new responsibility and additional funding for “leading the Department’s initiative on creating and establishing a process for restoring firearm rights to citizens.”

The budget document explains (at p. 96) that the office now headed by Pardon Attorney Ed Martin “is developing a process to allow individuals with prior felony convictions and other disqualifiers to petition the Department for restoration of federal firearm rights pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 925(c).” The § 925(c) process was administered by ATF until Congress defunded it in 1992, leaving those with federal convictions and many others without a readily available way of regaining their rights. (We explored these issues in a report on restoration of firearm rights published earlier this month.)

DOJ estimates that “[t]he population of potentially eligible applicants is estimated to be over 25 million and, given the length of time since a working process has been in place, it is anticipated that there will be significant interest from the public in pursuing this remedy.” An additional $448,000 allotted to the Pardon Attorney’s budget “will allow the office to accomplish its clemency mission and firearm rights restoration efforts for the Department.” 

As explained in the DOJ budget document, the Pardon Attorney has been working to develop “an IT case management system to implement an application intake, review, and management process for citizens applying for the restoration of firearms rights.” The document adds that Justice “is committed to establishing a process to review and evaluate these claims at minimal cost.”

Working in conjunction with the Criminal Justice Information Services Team at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Pardon Attorney is developing an easy-to-use web portal for the acceptance of applications. The new process will leverage technological advancements and system integrations to maximize efficiencies and minimize the manual review of applications for restoration.  

We understand that the Pardon Attorney will publish implementing regulations for public comment shortly after June 18, the date the comment period for the March 20 regulation concludes.  It will be interesting to see the specifics of a case management system that can at once handle the claims of 25 million people while faithfully complying (“at minimal cost”) with the § 925(c) standard for relief (“the Attorney General may grant such relief if it is established to his satisfaction that the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant’s record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest”). It will also be interesting to see how broad the category of “other disqualifiers” mentioned in the budget document may be, including whether it extends to categories of citizens dispossessed under federal law for reasons other than a criminal conviction, such as drug addiction, dishonorable military discharge, and “mental defect.” See 18 U.S. C. § 922(g). 

In any event, dispensing with federal restrictions will not be sufficient to fully restore the firearm rights of many presently dispossessed by virtue of a criminal conviction, since most states impose firearm restrictions based on criminal conviction that are entirely independent of federal law, as CCRC’s report documents. It may be that, with the revival of a § 925(c) process that is essentially automatic, state law will become the primary regulator of firearm rights for those dispossessed by virtue of a criminal conviction.