A federal process that has been dead on paper since 1992 is being restarted. The rule creating it takes effect on September 21 — but almost nobody will be able to apply that day, and the Justice Department is opening the door a few thousand people at a time.
A law office with bookshelves, a desk and a Lady Justice statue. Photo via Pexels.
The final rule was published on August 20 and signed by Attorney General Todd Blanche on August 13. It creates a new 28 CFR part 107 setting out the criteria the Department will use to decide who gets their federal firearm rights back.
The law always allowed this. The funding did not.
18 U.S.C. § 925(c) has said since 1968 that a person prohibited from possessing firearms may apply to the Attorney General for relief, and that relief may be granted where the applicant’s record and reputation show they will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety, and where granting it would not be contrary to the public interest.
ATF ran that process for years. The Department now describes its own administration of it as resource-intensive, inconsistent, and sometimes producing outcomes not wholly consistent with public safety. Beginning in 1992, Congress barred ATF from spending appropriated funds to process § 925(c) applications, which left the statute on the books and the machinery switched off.
The statute never went away. This rule rebuilds the machinery.
The rollout is staged, and capped
This is the part that matters most for anyone planning around it, and it is not in the rule — it is on the Department’s implementation page, updated on September 8.
Applications open to invited candidates on September 25, 2026. They open to the public on November 4, 2026, and the Department says the first 5,000 candidates can apply. A further stage on January 4, 2027 admits 500 more, and that is when the application fee starts being charged.
So the effective date of the rule and the date anyone can actually file are different things, and the public window is numerically limited rather than open-ended. The online application form is listed as coming soon.
The fee is $30, with provision for waiver or reduction. Applicants will also need electronic fingerprints, supporting documents that vary with the type of disability, and character references.
Who is presumptively denied
The rule does not create an entitlement. It sets out categories where an application is denied absent extraordinary circumstances, and the list is long and specific.
Permanent presumptive denial attaches to felony convictions involving a death; rape, sexual abuse or sexual assault; human trafficking; kidnapping; intimate partner or domestic violence; burglary; robbery; extortion; carjacking; arson; violent racketeering; gang-related offenses; maiming, assault or battery; stalking; escape or rescue of a person in custody; terrorism; and witness tampering. It also covers any other felony in which the applicant brandished or discharged a firearm or used an explosive, and attempts, conspiracies and aiding or abetting any of those.
A ten-year presumptive bar runs from conviction or completion of sentence for drug manufacturing and distribution felonies, threats of violence, explosives offenses, several firearms offenses, possessing or discharging a firearm on school property, and animal abuse. A misdemeanor crime of domestic violence carries the same ten years — and if the applicant incurs another disability or is arrested for a violent offense inside that window, the ten years starts again.
A five-year presumptive bar applies to any other felony, and to assault, battery, stalking or a threatened act of violence.
Current status is assessed separately. An application is denied if the applicant is awaiting sentencing, serving any part of a sentence, participating in a diversion or treatment program in lieu of conviction, subject to the prohibitions covering fugitives, unlawfully present aliens or domestic violence restraining orders, an unlawful user of a controlled substance, or required to register as a sex offender based on a disqualifying offense.
One definitional detail is worth flagging: for the purposes of this part, “controlled substance” expressly excludes marijuana.
What relief does not do
Relief under part 107 lifts the federal disability. It does not reach state law. Someone independently prohibited under the law of their state stays prohibited there regardless of what the Attorney General decides, and the rule says so directly.
It is also not permanent cover. A person who incurs a new disability after a grant is not protected by the earlier decision and has to apply again. Relief obtained by lying on the application is void from the outset.
Grants are not private either. Section 925(c) requires the Attorney General to publish notice of each grant in the Federal Register, together with the reasons for it.
And a denial is not necessarily the end. The statute lets a person whose application is denied petition the federal district court where they live for judicial review, and allows that court to admit additional evidence where refusing to would produce a miscarriage of justice.
The objections on the record
The Department received 15,559 comments across the interim final rule and the proposed rule. Roughly 91 percent supported reviving the process; about nine percent opposed it.
Substantive objections came from several directions. One firearm safety organization argued that reviving the process conflicts with the appropriations laws that defunded the ATF program and barred transferring its functions elsewhere. Others raised the federal-state mismatch, arguing either that a state restoration should carry federal effect or that federal relief without state relief just creates confusion. A further objection was that treating state expungements differently across states raises an equal protection problem.
The Department addressed these and proceeded. Given the subject and the volume of interest, litigation over some part of this is a reasonable expectation rather than a prediction.
If this affects you
The Department publishes eligibility guidance, the presumptive disqualifier list, the required documents and the fee rules at justice.gov/ffrr.
Anyone whose own situation is at stake should be reading the rule and talking to a lawyer licensed in their state rather than working from a summary — this one included. The criteria are technical, they turn on definitions that do not match ordinary usage, and a wrong answer on a firearms question is not a recoverable mistake.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by Leonidas Clark before publication. It is general information about a federal rule, not legal advice. Dates and application stages are set by the Department and may change; confirm at justice.gov/ffrr.
