DOJ program gives convicted felons chance to own guns again : NPR

A person convicted of a felony usually loses a host of rights, including owning a gun.

Normally, getting that right back is nearly impossible without a presidential pardon, according to clemency experts.

But now, the Justice Department, through its Office of the Pardon Attorney, is reviving a path to restore gun rights. It’s the first time since a similar program administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ended in the 1990s.

“We’re ecstatic that for the first time since 1992, federal firearms relief will be available to nonviolent offenders,” says Adam Kraut, executive director of the gun rights group, the Second Amendment Foundation.

At the time the ATF program ended, a critical report from a gun safety group found an overburdened agency and instances where people who had their gun rights restored went on to commit violent crimes. Kraut estimates millions of Americans since 1992 lost the chance to own a firearm again following that report.

Gun rights groups are hailing this effort, but others have a lot of questions, and concerns, about how the program will work.

Here’s what we know so far.

Who’s eligible for this program and how does it work?

The DOJ says violent offenders — convicted of crimes like rape or kidnapping — won’t be considered. Neither will people who are still in prison or awaiting sentencing.

Applicants have to provide details of their crime and conviction, character references and fingerprints. Eventually, applicants will have to pay a $30 fee. The DOJ estimates that about 330,000 people will apply per year.

Staff members and attorneys in the office will be responsible for examining the applications. Additional details on metrics for applicants are not available. According to the final rule published in the Federal Register, the DOJ “declines to limit itself to one rigid methodology for decision-making” and that the department wants to keep an “agile and adaptable” decision-making process.

This week, the DOJ will begin accepting applications from a group of invited candidates, who the department said expressed previous interest in the program. About 1,500 people received invitations late last month, the DOJ said in a statement to NPR.

Starting Nov. 4, the DOJ will accept applications from the first 5,000 candidates from the general public. In January, the process will open again for 500 more applicants.

The names of people who get their rights restored will be published in the Federal Register, as required by federal law.

There may be one major wrinkle: state laws.

States have their own laws on gun rights restoration. So a person who regains their federal gun rights may not be allowed by law to own one in their own state. The DOJ, in a statement to NPR, said it recommends that people “should consult with their state, territorial, or tribal authorities to learn more about whether he can possess firearms under the laws where he lives.”

Is it safe to return guns to ex-felons?

A 1992 Violence Policy Center report helped spell the end of the ATF program.

In it, the group, which supports gun control and opposes the revival of this program, analyzed cases of convicted felons whose gun rights were restored.

It found that out of the more than 2,000 people who had their gun rights restored between 1985 and 1992, 69 were subsequently rearrested. Their crimes included attempted murder, first degree sexual assault, kidnapping, child molestation and other serious convictions.

Following the VPC’s report, Congress blocked the ATF from using federal funds to process individual gun rights restorations, effectively ending that program.

Kristen Rand, government affairs director with the Violence Policy Center, says the DOJ’s new version of the program is “obviously dangerous” and that “this taxpayer-funded guns-for-felons program should be permanently shut down.”

But experts who study and work on clemency — which includes pardons and commutations — welcome the DOJ program, saying it gives people who paid their debt to society a second chance and restoring some rights is worthwhile.

If the application review process is as involved as the DOJ says it is, then the risk of a pardoned individual going on to commit a violent offense should be low, says Rachel Barkow, a law professor at New York University. Generally, she says, of the people who have received state or federal pardons for past crimes, “the recidivism rate is very low.”

Is the pardonoffice equipped to handle this work?

The 1992 report from the Violence Policy Center also exposed the burden the pardon program placed on the ATF.

“[ATF is] the smallest major federal law enforcement agency,” explains Tom Chittum, who spent much of his career at the agency before retiring in 2022. “And conducting those investigations took some of its resources away from what it should be doing, which is investigating criminal misuse of firearms and violent crime.”

The DOJ says it believes there are 25 million potentially eligible applicants for this new gun restoration program.

The pardon office is already under strain, according to two former DOJ pardon attorneys. On top of this new work, staff are already handling what the administration says is an increase in overall clemency requests, while it deals with the departure of hundreds of staff, including the former head of the pardon office, Ed Martin. He left to create a new gun rights group focused on this very issue, Reuters reported.

Liz Oyer, who was appointed by President Joe Biden and served as U.S. pardon attorney from April 2022 until March 2025, expresses serious concern that the office — already stretched thin — can handle the expected influx of applicants.

“This is a massive undertaking,” Oyer says. If even a small portion of those 25 million individuals submit applications, she says, “it could easily overwhelm the resources of the Office of the Pardon Attorney.”

The Trump administration fired Oyer, she says, after she declined to restore gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a prominent Trump supporter who was convicted of domestic violence.

“The office, since my departure, has been absolutely decimated,” she says. “The staff remaining is less than half the size it was when I departed, and the clemency caseload continues to grow.”

The DOJ spokesperson told NPR that the clemency caseload currently stands at approximately 16,000 cases.

Under the Biden administration, pending petitions for pardons and commutations ranged from 16,968 in 2021 to 9,378 in 2024. Biden left office in 2025 with 10,418 pending clemency requests.

The DOJ acknowledges in its budget request to Congress that this will all be a heavy lift. It told NPR in a statement that it’s “realigning” resources and making budget and hiring requests to meet the need.

The department asked Congress for $16.5 million (nearly $5 million more than what was approved for fiscal year 2025) to add 50 positions, including 23 attorneys to handle the workload — four of which will be hired specifically for the gun rights restoration program. A total of $4.8 million is earmarked to support the rights restoration effort.