U.S. JUSTICE DEPT. FIREARMS RESTORATION PROGRAM INITIALLY OPENS APPLICATION PROCESS TO SELECT FEW
U.S. Justice Dept.'s firearms restoration program opens to select few
Firearms restoration program opens first to "invited candidates" applicants.
Firearms restoration program opens to the general public starting November 4 and will be capped at 5,000 candidates.
New applications will not be accepted again until January 4, 2027 and will be capped at 500 candidates.
In August, shortly after the U.S. Justice Department (Justice Dept.) published its final rules on how individuals can restore of their gun rights due to a federal conviction, I posted a blog about the rules.
At that time, the Justice Dept. stated that the application process would commence on September 21. Earlier last week I learned that the Justice Dept. had established a rolling application process:
September 25, 2026: Invited candidates given priority status to submit their applications.
Starting November 4, 2026: Up to 5,000 candidates will be permitted to submit their applications. (Presumably, on-line portal will stop accepting applications after cap is reached.)
Starting January 4, 2027: Application process will reopen and accept up to 500 new candidates.
Who are these invited candidates? How many invited candidates were there? How were they selected? Don’t know. If I were a betting woman, given the transactional nature of the current occupant in the White House, I would venture to guess that a generous contribution was required to get on the candidate list.[1]
For those who do not fall into the invited candidate category, time will be of the essence if they hope to be one of the 5,000 applicants. Anyone planning to apply in November, now is the time to gather the documentation that must be submitted with their application.
It’s ironic that U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche boasted that an estimated 30 million people would apply to restore their gun rights. Why then would the Justice Dept. create a bottleneck right from the outset?
One possible explanation is that the department realized that it doesn’t have enough staffing to process an unlimited number of applications and didn’t want to end up with egg on its face when the applications start piling up.
Time will tell if the Justice Dept. has the capacity to process these applications in a timely manner.
[1] Even before the final rules were published, several news outlets reported that as many as 32 individuals had their firearm rights restored by the Justice Dept.