Public record · August 17, 2026 · U.S. Department of Justice · Final rule
For the first time since 1992, you can ask for your gun rights back.
Today Attorney General Todd Blanche signed the final rule that restarts federal firearm rights restoration under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), a process Congress quietly strangled 34 years ago. It now runs out of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and the Justice Department says roughly 30 million Americans are in the pool. Here is the timeline, the rules, and the fine print, read from the rule itself.
This page is set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface built so no letter can be mistaken for another. A page about un-burying the fine print should practice what it preaches.
01 · The fine print
The law was always there. You just couldn't use it.
Since the Gun Control Act of 1968, federal law has contained a relief valve. A person barred from possessing firearms could apply to have that disability lifted. ATF ran the program for decades. Then, starting with the fiscal year 1993 appropriations bill, Congress attached a rider barring ATF from spending a single dollar to investigate or act on those applications, and renewed it every year after. The statute stayed on the books, word for word. In 2002 the Supreme Court closed the last exit in United States v. Bean: if ATF cannot act on your application, a federal court cannot step in and grant the relief for you. Inaction became the mechanism. A living statute, rendered unreadable in practice, for thirty-four years.
“…may make an application to the Attorney General for relief from the disabilities imposed by Federal laws…”
18 U.S.C. § 925(c) · on the books since 1968 · defunded since 1992
02 · What was signed today
One of Blanche's first acts as Attorney General.
The final rule, titled “Application for Relief from Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws with Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms,” was signed and transmitted to the Federal Register today. It builds the machinery § 925(c) always assumed would exist, and it hands the keys to the Office of the Pardon Attorney under Ed Martin, not ATF.
“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.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche · DOJ press release 26-934 · Aug 17, 2026“…a pathway for restoration for the 30 million Americans who have lost their Second Amendment rights.”
U.S. Pardon Attorney Edward Martin · same releaseRelief is individualized, never automatic. Nobody's rights come back by category. You apply, you carry the burden, and the Attorney General decides. That structure is the whole story of the rule, and it cuts both ways: it is why this survives legal challenge, and why the numbers below matter.
03 · The clock
Solid dates behind us. Floating dates ahead.
Everything already on the record has a real date. Everything ahead is measured from R, the day the rule prints in the Federal Register, and as of tonight that has not happened yet. The dashed entries move with it.
The executive order
President Trump directs the Justice Department to review every federal policy that infringes Second Amendment rights and to bring him a plan.
DOJ takes § 925(c) away from ATF
An interim rule withdraws ATF's delegation, sidestepping the appropriations rider that only ever named ATF. A trickle of individual grants follows, each published in the Federal Register: April 2025, February 2026, May 2026.
The proposed rule
The draft process goes out for comment. More than 15,000 comments come back, roughly 91 percent supportive, as reported from the rule's own preamble.
The final rule is signed
Blanche signs, DOJ transmits the rule to the Federal Register, and the program website goes live at justice.gov/ffrr the same day.
Publication. The clock starts.
The rule prints in the Federal Register. Every date below is keyed to this one.
The rule takes effect
And the Department begins inviting candidates to apply.
The application opens to the public
The first 5,000 candidates can apply.
500 more seats, and the $30 fee begins
The Department's own staging, verbatim from justice.gov/ffrr. The online form, OMB Form 1123-0017, is listed as coming soon.
04 · The math
Thirty million people. Five thousand seats.
Watch the numbers shrink. This is a real door, and it opens a crack at a time.
I want this program to exist and I want it to work. But nobody should tell you 30 million people are getting their rights back this year. In year one, this is a pilot with a waiting room the size of Ohio.
05 · Who can apply
Every prohibited category is eligible to ask.
The application is open to all nine classes of prohibited persons under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Eligible to apply is not the same as likely to win, and the presumptions in the next section do the sorting. But the front door is open to the whole list.
Corporations and other entities that lost firearm privileges will get a separate process; DOJ says check back. State and tribal prohibitions are not touched by any of this.
06 · The five presumptions
Denied, absent extraordinary circumstances.
The rule sorts applicants with five classes of presumptive disqualifiers. If one covers you, your application is denied unless you can show extraordinary circumstances that overcome it. And the Attorney General looks at the facts underneath your offense, not just its name. Expunged, pardoned, and set-aside convictions must still be disclosed.
Current status
Until the status changesAwaiting sentencing. Incarcerated or serving any part of a sentence, including probation, parole, or unpaid restitution. In a diversion program. A fugitive. An unlawful drug user, except marijuana-only. An illegal alien or nonimmigrant-visa holder. Under a domestic violence restraining order. A registered sex offender. Or prohibited on mental health grounds in a state that offers its own relief program you haven't used or were denied by.
Permanent
No clock. Ever.Any felony involving: the death of another person, rape or sexual abuse, human trafficking, kidnapping, domestic violence, burglary, robbery, extortion, carjacking, arson, violent racketeering, gang offenses, maiming, assault or battery, stalking, escape, terrorism, witness tampering, or brandishing or discharging a firearm or using an explosive in the crime.
Attempt, solicitation, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting all count the same as the completed crime.
Ten years
From the end of your sentenceFelonies involving drug trafficking, threats of violence, explosives, certain firearm offenses, weapons on school property, or animal abuse. Also misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, and here the clock can reset: a new arrest or a new disability inside the ten years starts it over.
Arrests count in this class, not just convictions, unless a judge found no misconduct or the charge was dismissed on the merits.
Five years
From the end of your sentenceEvery other felony not named above, and misdemeanor assault, battery, stalking, or threatened violence. This is the class most nonviolent felons land in: finish your sentence, stay clean five years, and the presumption against you expires.
Reapplication
After a denialDenied on a permanent disqualifier, you stay denied. Denied for most other reasons, you carry a fresh five-year presumption before you can usefully try again. The rule calls this the prevention of vexatious applications.
The marijuana carve-out
For this rule, “controlled substance” explicitly does not include marijuana. A person whose only § 922(g)(3) problem is marijuana use has no status disqualifier at all. Written into the rule twice, in the definitions and in § 107.50(c). That is a quiet policy earthquake in its own right.
07 · What you must prove
The burden is yours, and it is double.
That you are not likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety, and that relief would not be contrary to the public interest.
Both prongs, to the Attorney General's satisfaction. The rule lists eleven things the Department may weigh, from your application or from its own investigation:
- Your criminal history
- How serious the underlying conduct was
- Conduct behind charges dismissed in a plea deal
- Your behavior in prison and on supervision
- Time elapsed since your sentence ended, and how you spent it
- Past or present drug use
- Restraining or protection orders against you
- Threats you have made
- Your mental health
- What local law enforcement says about you
- Anything else relevant to your individual case
08 · What the application takes
This is homework, not a form.
The fee
Paid through Pay.gov after you submit, once fees begin at R + 120. Waivable or reducible for economic hardship. Fingerprint and records fees are on top.
Electronic fingerprints, at a post office
Taken only after you start the e-application and receive a QR code by email, then captured at a participating U.S. Post Office.
Character references
Sworn affidavits from three qualified references.
Your whole paper trail
Official criminal records from every state you have lived in or been arrested in since age 18 or in the last 25 years, whichever is shorter. Plus court documents for felonies, mental health records, military discharge papers, and domestic violence case files where they apply.
The completion clock
Once you start the e-application you have 30 days to finish, or you start over. Lose your link and PIN and there is no recovery; you start over. Collect everything first.
Total disclosure
Every prohibiting conviction and status must be listed, including expunged and pardoned ones. Lie or withhold on purpose and any relief you win is void from the start.
09 · What it does not do
Read the edges before you celebrate.
It does not touch state law.
Federal relief lifts federal disabilities only. If your state bars you independently, you are still barred. Check your state before you check Washington.
It does not cover your future.
Relief reaches the offenses and conduct behind you. A new disqualifying offense creates a brand-new prohibition.
It is not private.
Every grant of relief is published, by name, in the Federal Register.
It may not even be necessary for you.
A full presidential pardon for a federal-only conviction already restores federal firearm rights. And a state mental-health relief program that meets the 2007 NICS Improvement Amendments Act standard already clears § 922(g)(4) on its own.
10 · The catch
The kill switch is still installed.
Here is the one thing the rule does not contain: a deadline. Nothing requires the Department to decide your application in ninety days, or a year, or ever. That should sound familiar, because inaction is exactly how § 925(c) died the first time. Congress never repealed the statute. It just made sure nobody could act on it, and Bean held the courts couldn't step in. A future administration hostile to this program would not need to repeal this rule. It would only need to stop answering the mail.
Which is why the honest way to score today is this: a working process now exists where none has existed since 1992, with real staff, a real website, a real application, and real grants already published in the Federal Register under the interim rule. That is historic and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But the program lives at the pleasure of whoever runs the Justice Department, its first public window seats 5,000 people out of thirty million, and its speed is a policy choice, not a legal guarantee. Watch the grant notices in the Federal Register. That is the scoreboard.
A right restored by grace can be suspended by silence. Hold them to the clock they published.
Sourcing · plain and complete
What this page rests on
- Rule text quoted here is DOJ's own unofficial pre-publication version and its plain-language summary, posted at justice.gov/ffrr on August 17, 2026. The official text is whatever prints in the Federal Register.
- As of the evening of August 17, the rule has not been published. Every R-date on this page floats until it is. I verified against the Federal Register's public records today.
- “The first 5,000 candidates” and “500 more candidates” are verbatim from justice.gov/ffrr, which does not explain what happens after the 5,500th applicant. When DOJ clarifies, this page updates.
- The 330,000 first-year estimate and the 15,000-comment / 91-percent figures come from reporting on the rule's preamble (Bearing Arms, Aug 17), not from a document I have read directly.
- The online application is not live. Nobody can apply today, and anyone charging money to “reserve your spot” is selling you nothing.
- Quotes from Blanche and Martin are from DOJ press release 26-934.
Set in Atkinson Hyperlegible Next and Atkinson Hyperlegible Mono, designed by Applied Design Works for the Braille Institute so that low-vision readers never mistake one character for another. Commentary and opinion, not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer before you rely on any of this.