On July 22, 2025, President Trump’s Department of Justice posted a proposed rule in the federal registry designed to guide the U.S. Attorney General in restoring gun rights to persons who lost them.
The proposed rule is titled Application for Relief From Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws With Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms.
The text of the rule makes clear that the ATF long held the decision-making role in the restoration of gun rights: “Before 2025, the process for determining who qualified for relief pursuant to section 925(c) was delegated to the ATF by an Assistant Secretary within the Department of the Treasury…and, most recently, after ATF was transferred to the Department of Justice by the Homeland Security Act, by the Attorney General.”
The text continues by pointing out that the ATF at times restored rights to persons for whom such restoration should not have occurred:
[The] ATF had few clear criteria to guide its assessment of whether applicants would pose a danger to public safety. ATF’s ad hoc determinations led to significant public-safety concerns. Between 1985 and 1990, ATF granted relief to approximately half of applicants who did not drop out of the process. One 1992 study found that, out of 100 randomly selected felons to whom ATF granted relief, five had been convicted for felony sexual assault, 11 for burglary, 13 for distribution of narcotics, and 4 for homicide. Another analysis revealed that ATF granted relief, for example, to an applicant who had fatally shot his cousin while intoxicated and to an applicant who untruthfully failed to disclose his nine-year-old convictions for burglary and brandishing a firearm. Unsurprisingly, given that applicants received relief even after committing violent and serious felonies, “too many. . . felons whose gun ownership rights were restored went on to commit crimes with firearms.”
On March 20, 2025, AG Pam Bondi “issued an interim final rule withdrawing the delegation of authority to ATF to administer” the restorative actions regarding Second Amendment rights. Bondi’s “interim final rule” anticipated a clarification of those who could, and, most importantly, those who could not have their gun rights restored. The current proposed rule is structured to deliver the clarifications needed. (A detailed description of those ineligible for gun rights restoration is contained in the proposed rule.)
The authority for restoring gun rights will fall outside of the ATF’s purview if the proposed rule is adopted as posted. That authority will instead belong to the Attorney General of the United States.
The public is allowed to provide comments on the rule; those comments “must be submitted on or before October 20, 2025.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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