Restoration of firearm rights after conviction: Findings and recommendations

We are pleased to publish an updated version of our report on state laws governing loss and restoration of firearm rights after a criminal conviction: Restoration of Firearm Rights After Conviction: A National Survey and Recommendations for Reform. This report, a version of which was originally published in June of 2025, finds that felony dispossession laws in most states extend well beyond what is necessary to advance public safety objectives, and that the process for regaining lost rights tends to be difficult to navigate if accessible at all. Our report argues that broad categorical dispossession laws are more vulnerable to constitutional challenge under the Second Amendment where a state does not provide an easily accessible process for restoring rights based on an individualized assessment of public safety risk. It makes a number of recommendations to this end, which are summarized at the end of this post.   Since our report was first published six months ago, there have been some changes in state laws warranting an update. More significant, however, in July 2025 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed to revive a long-dormant program under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) for restoring rights lost under the federal dispossession statute. Originally administered by […]

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Illinois poised to enact Nation’s broadest automatic sealing law

On October 30, 2025, the Illinois General Assembly approved HB 1836, making Illinois the 13th “Clean Slate” state. Illinois will also have the broadest automated record-sealing program of them all.   The Governor’s signature will launch the implementation toward an automated record-sealing process to bridge the “second chance gap” for an estimated 2.2 million people with an Illinois criminal record. After necessary preparatory measures, sealing of existing conviction and non-conviction records is scheduled to begin in January 2029. Illinois’ law will apply to most of the misdemeanor and felony convictions for which petition-based sealing is already authorized, with the same short waiting period. In addition, Illinois will now join the large group of states for which sealing of non-conviction records is mandatory and accomplished immediately upon a favorable case disposition. Building on a Legacy of Progress Illinois already leads the nation with one of the most expansive petition-based sealing laws. Since 2017, when lawmakers passed HB 2373, most felony conviction records have been eligible for sealing relief, after a comparatively brief waiting period of just three years from the end of a sentence. That law marked a turning point, expanding eligibility from only nine felony convictions to nearly all, with just […]

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Update on federal firearms restoration program

Last spring, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its intention to revive a long-dormant program to remove federal restrictions on firearm possession, including for those with a criminal record.  In July DOJ published for comment a proposed rule that would, when finalized, accomplish this for people who are determined to pose no public safety risk. See 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). See Trump’s Justice Department aims to restore gun rights for nonviolent offenders. The comment period closed on October 20, and it is therefore possible that a final rule will be published at any time to launch the revived program. This will open the door, for the first time in more than 30 years, to many individuals who have been unable to regain their firearm rights because of their criminal record. It is anticipated that thousands of people will want to apply for this relief, which will be administered by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. We have some concerns about whether the demanding § 925(c) application process described in the proposed rule will deliver on its promise. For example, the document production requirements may be challenging for many people, especially those with dated minor convictions. See proposed 28 […]

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Virginia enacts significant record reforms in 2025

Note: We are very pleased to publish a summary of the several significant record reforms enacted by Virginia in 2025, prepared by Rob Poggenklass. Rob is executive director of Justice Forward Virginia, a public defender-led criminal justice policy advocacy organization. He was deputy director of CCRC in 2022.  The Commonwealth of Virginia has continued to make significant progress toward reducing the collateral consequences of criminal conviction, although a closely divided government has meant that reforms have been more incremental in recent years. Here are the several new laws that Virginia enacted during the 2025 legislative session: Occupational licensing reforms; Expansion of vacatur eligibility for victims of human trafficking; Two bills easing employment restrictions for people convicted of “barrier crimes”; and Technical updates and policy changes to the major 2021 record sealing law, which will take effect July 1, 2026; In addition, the General Assembly took the first step toward amending the Virginia Constitution to ensure that a felony conviction results in loss of the right to vote (and potentially other civil rights) only during actual incarceration. These six major new authorities are described below. I expect that the Virginia General Assembly’s exemplary performance in enacting these important new provisions will […]

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New information about revived federal firearm restoration process

On March 20 of this year, the Justice Department announced its intention to revive the long-dormant administrative process for restoring federal firearm rights lost because of a criminal conviction. It did not explain how it intended to do this. We have now learned more about how the revived federal firearm restoration process will work. The DOJ budget for FY 2026 published on June 13 confirms that, while a number of departmental components will be reduced or phased out entirely, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has an entirely new responsibility and additional funding for “leading the Department’s initiative on creating and establishing a process for restoring firearm rights to citizens.” The budget document explains (at p. 96) that the office now headed by Pardon Attorney Ed Martin “is developing a process to allow individuals with prior felony convictions and other disqualifiers to petition the Department for restoration of federal firearm rights pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 925(c).” The § 925(c) process was administered by ATF until Congress defunded it in 1992, leaving those with federal convictions and many others without a readily available way of regaining their rights. (We explored these issues in a report on restoration of firearm rights […]

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