The Justice Department finalized a rule on August 17 establishing an application process for people seeking relief from federal firearm disabilities under 18 U.S.C. 925(c). The rule is not automatic restoration. An applicant must persuade the attorney general that the circumstances behind the prohibition, along with the applicant’s record, reputation, and later conduct, show that the person is unlikely to endanger public safety and that relief would not be contrary to the public interest.
A program returning after three decades
Congress created the 925(c) relief mechanism, but appropriations restrictions beginning in 1992 prevented ATF from spending money to investigate or act on most individual applications. DOJ withdrew ATF’s delegated authority in March 2025 and proposed criteria for a new department-run system that July. The final rule says the Office of the Pardon Attorney, rather than ATF, will administer the revived program. DOJ received 15,559 comments across the interim rule and proposal, including 4,476 unique substantive submissions.
DOJ’s rollout is tied to publication in the Federal Register, not the August 17 announcement alone. The rule takes effect 30 days after publication, when DOJ says it will begin inviting candidates to apply. The department’s program page says the public application will open 75 days after publication for the first 5,000 candidates. At 120 days, another 500 candidates may apply and the application fee begins. The transmitted rule still contains date placeholders, so calendar dates remain unknown until the official Federal Register version appears.
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Who may apply and what DOJ will examine
The program covers individuals prohibited under the categories in 18 U.S.C. 922(g), including felony convictions, certain mental-health statuses, dishonorable discharge, renounced citizenship, qualifying domestic-violence orders or convictions, and several status-based prohibitions. Corporations and other entities will use a separate process that DOJ has not yet detailed. A federal grant addresses only the federal disability identified in the application; it does not erase an independent state or tribal restriction, and a later new disability requires another application.
Eligibility to submit is not the same as a favorable presumption. DOJ lists permanent presumptive denials for specified violent felony conduct, including homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, domestic violence, terrorism, and brandishing or discharging a firearm. Separate presumptions apply for ten years after certain drug-trafficking, explosive, firearm, school-weapon, animal-abuse, threat, or domestic-violence offenses, and for five years after other felonies or listed violent misdemeanors. An applicant may try to overcome a presumption only by showing extraordinary circumstances.
The application is document-heavy. All applicants must provide state criminal records covering the shorter of the past 25 years or the period since age 18, including records from each place they lived. The required material changes with the disabling event and may include charging papers, judgments, proof that every part of a sentence was completed, military records, mental-health records, or domestic-violence case documents. If an official record is unavailable, DOJ generally requires a sworn account of the information, the effort made to obtain it, and why it could not be secured.
Applicants also need three character references who are unrelated by blood or marriage, have known the applicant for at least three years, and are not themselves prohibited under 922(g). References must make statements under penalty of perjury about recent criminal conduct, substance and alcohol abuse, mental health, character, violence, suicide risk, and public-safety concerns. DOJ requires electronic fingerprints through the Postal Service’s process; fingerprints taken elsewhere will not be accepted. The rule sets a nonrefundable $30 application fee, with requests for reduction or waiver allowed.
What a decision changes
The attorney general may consider more than convictions. The rule permits review of arrests, dismissed charges, alternative dispositions, protection orders, threats, mental health, substance use, information from local chief law-enforcement officers, and whether denial would infringe the applicant’s Second Amendment rights. An incomplete application gets a 30-day opportunity to cure the defect before it is treated as abandoned. DOJ has not promised a decision deadline, leaving processing time as a material unknown for applicants.
A grant prompts the FBI to update NICS, and DOJ says the recipient may receive an RPIN for later firearm purchases. The person’s name, grant date, and reasons for relief are published in the Federal Register. A denial may be reviewed in the federal district court where the applicant lives, while an indeterminate result allows a new application supported by additional information. The next concrete milestone is publication of the official rule, which starts every rollout clock and supplies the first fixed application dates.
About the Author
Nick Sawinyh - Nick Sawinyh is a father, husband, hobby farmer, and gun enthusiast from Kentucky. He founded GunsNation and writes most of what appears on this blog.
