Firearm Rights After a Federal Conviction: Restoration and Its Limits

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

A federal felony conviction takes away the right to possess a firearm, and getting that right back is one of the hardest restorations in all of federal law. People are often surprised to learn how few routes actually exist — and how a path that looks open in the statute books spent decades closed and is only now, in 2025 and 2026, showing signs of reopening. Understanding the real landscape matters, because a wrong assumption here can mean a new federal felony charge.

This guide explains firearm rights after a federal conviction — the scope of the federal firearms bar, the narrow statutory exemption in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), the Supreme Court decision that limits it for federal felons, the § 925(c) relief statute that sat dormant for three decades and has recently begun to stir, the post-Bruen constitutional litigation, and the realistic role of a presidential pardon. It is grounded in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), 18 U.S.C. § 925, and Supreme Court precedent. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. handles federal criminal defense and post-conviction matters nationwide. Elizabeth Franklin-Best’s 2026 recognitions — a “Best Lawyer” designation in Appellate Practice from Best Lawyers in America and a Chambers USA ranking in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations — reflect the constitutional and appellate work this fast-moving area now demands. Across more than 100 federal appeals in courts nationwide, including matters in all twelve circuits, she has tracked the post-Bruen Second Amendment landscape as it has shifted term by term. Managing Director Christopher Zoukis, a federal policy authority, follows how these restoration rules operate after sentencing.

If you are weighing whether you can lawfully possess a firearm again, the analysis has to come before the firearm does. A paid, one-hour initial consultation with our firm puts your full record against the current law and tells you exactly where you stand.

Quick Answer: Firearm Rights

Question	Answer
Does a federal conviction take away firearm rights?	Yes. Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), a person convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison cannot possess a firearm or ammunition. The bar is indefinite.
Does the bar expire over time?	No. Completing a sentence and living without incident do not restore firearm rights. The disability continues until a recognized legal mechanism lifts it.
What is the § 921(a)(20) exemption?	A conviction that is expunged, set aside, pardoned, or for which civil rights are restored is not counted — unless the relief expressly bars firearms.
Can a federal felon use § 925(c) to apply for relief?	Changing. The route was frozen from 1992 until recently, and Bean bars judicial review of agency inaction — but DOJ proposed a new application program in 2025, and the Attorney General granted the first § 925(c) relief in decades in February 2026. The general application had not yet opened as of mid-2026.
Is § 922(g)(1) unconstitutional?	Not nationwide. The circuits are split — the Third Circuit held it unconstitutional as applied to one nonviolent offender, while the Fifth and Ninth upheld it — and the Supreme Court had declined to resolve the split as of mid-2026.
What is the realistic federal route?	For a federal conviction, a presidential pardon is generally the realistic route to lifting the federal firearms bar.

Key Takeaways

• Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), a federal felony conviction makes it unlawful to possess any firearm or ammunition, and a violation is a serious federal felony.
• The firearms bar is indefinite — it does not expire simply because a sentence is complete or years have passed.
• Section 921(a)(20) exempts a conviction that is expunged, set aside, pardoned, or for which civil rights are restored, unless the relief expressly bars firearms.
• The statute’s choice-of-law instruction points to the law of the convicting jurisdiction.
• In Beecham v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a federal felon can use the exemption only through restoration under federal law — a state cannot restore federal firearm rights.
• There is no general federal expungement statute and no general federal restoration-of-civil-rights procedure, so most of the § 921(a)(20) routes are unavailable for a federal conviction.
• Section 925(c) was frozen by appropriations riders from 1992 onward, and United States v. Bean confirmed that courts cannot review the resulting inaction — but in 2025 DOJ shifted the relief authority to the Attorney General, and in February 2026 the first grants in decades were made.
• A presidential pardon is generally the realistic federal route to lifting the firearms bar for a federal conviction.
• A pardon’s effect depends on its wording, relieves only the conviction it covers, and does not override a separate state-law prohibition.
• Second Amendment challenges to § 922(g)(1) have split the circuits — Range (3d Cir. en banc) against Diaz (5th Cir.) and Duarte (9th Cir. en banc) — and the Supreme Court had declined to take the issue up as of mid-2026; they are case-by-case litigation, not a restoration strategy.

The Federal Firearms Bar After a Conviction

The starting point is 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the federal felon-in-possession statute. It makes it unlawful for any person who has been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year to possess, in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition. The bar is broad: it covers possession of any firearm or ammunition, not just acquisition, and a violation is itself a serious federal felony.

Section 922(g) reaches several other categories of prohibited persons as well — including, in separate subsections, people convicted of certain domestic-violence misdemeanors and people subject to certain court orders. But the focus here is the felony-conviction bar, which is the one that affects the largest number of people and lasts indefinitely unless something affirmatively removes it.

The crucial practical point is that the bar does not simply expire. Completing a prison sentence, finishing supervised release, and living for years without incident do not, by themselves, restore firearm rights. The disability continues until a recognized legal mechanism lifts it — and, as the sections below explain, those mechanisms are narrow.

Applied Insight: The most dangerous assumption in this area is that “enough time has passed.” It has not, as a legal matter. The federal firearms bar is indefinite, and possession before the disability is properly lifted is a new felony. Anyone considering possessing a firearm after a federal conviction needs a definitive answer first, not an assumption.

The § 921(a)(20) Exemption

Congress did build an exemption into the statute. The definition of “conviction” in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) provides that a conviction which has been expunged or set aside, or for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored, is not counted as a conviction for federal firearms purposes — unless the pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not possess firearms.

On its face, the exemption offers four routes: expungement, set-aside, pardon, or restoration of civil rights. In the abstract, any one of them can take a conviction outside the firearms bar. The statute also contains a choice-of-law instruction: what constitutes a conviction is determined according to the law of the jurisdiction where the proceedings were held.

That choice-of-law instruction is the hinge. For a person with a state conviction, it points to state law, and many states do expunge, set aside, or restore civil rights in ways that satisfy the exemption. For a person with a federal conviction, it points to federal law — and that is where the routes narrow dramatically, as the next section explains.

The Beecham Problem: Federal Convictions

The Supreme Court addressed federal convictions directly in Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368 (1994). The Court held that the § 921(a)(20) exemption — the language about a conviction for which civil rights have been restored — refers only to restoration by the convicting jurisdiction. For a federal conviction, that means a person can take advantage of the exemption only if their civil rights have been restored under federal law. A state cannot restore a federal felon’s firearm rights.

This is what practitioners sometimes call the Beecham problem. The exemption lists restoration of civil rights as a route, but for a federal conviction there is no general federal procedure that simply “restores civil rights” in the way many states have. There is also no general federal expungement statute for federal convictions. So three of the four routes in the exemption — expungement, set-aside, and an ordinary restoration of civil rights — are largely unavailable for a federal felony conviction.

That leaves the pardon route as the realistic federal option under § 921(a)(20). It also leaves the federal relief statute, § 925(c) — which the next section addresses, and which spent more than thirty years as a dead letter before showing its first signs of life in 2025 and 2026.

Section 925(c): A Dormant Relief Statute Begins to Stir

On paper, federal law contains a dedicated mechanism for relief from firearms disabilities. Under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), a person under a firearms disability may apply to the Attorney General — through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — for relief, which can be granted if the applicant’s record and reputation show they would not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that relief would not be contrary to the public interest. The statute even provides for judicial review of a denial.

For more than three decades, however, this route was closed. Beginning in 1992, Congress included language in the ATF appropriations each year barring the agency from spending any appropriated funds to investigate or act on relief applications filed by individuals. ATF therefore stopped processing the applications altogether.

The Supreme Court confirmed the consequence in United States v. Bean, 537 U.S. 71 (2002). The Court held that because ATF could not act on an application, its inaction was not a “denial” — and without an actual denial, a federal court has nothing to review and no independent power to grant relief. For over thirty years, the combined effect of the appropriations rider and Bean was that § 925(c) existed on the books but could not be used.

That long freeze has now begun to thaw. In March 2025, the Department of Justice issued an interim final rule withdrawing ATF’s delegated authority over § 925(c) and returning the relief power to the Attorney General — a structural move designed to route around the ATF-specific funding bar. In July 2025, the Department published a proposed rule that would create a new, DOJ-administered application program for individualized restoration of federal firearm rights. And on February 6, 2026, the Attorney General granted § 925(c) relief to an initial group of individuals — the first grants in decades — with notice published in the Federal Register on February 23, 2026.

What this means in practice, as of mid-2026, is more modest than the headlines suggest. The Justice Department’s own program page says the general online application will open only after a final rule is published, and no final rule had issued as of this writing. The grants made so far have been individualized, discretionary, and few. Bean still frames the judicial side: until the Department actually denies an application, there is nothing for a court to review. Section 925(c) has gone from a dead letter to a developing program — but its criteria, timeline, and durability are still being written, and its current status should be confirmed before anyone relies on it.

Applied Insight: Section 925(c) is the best illustration in this entire area of why firearm-rights advice must carry a date. Counsel who described the statute accurately in 2024 called it nonfunctional; by early 2026 the Attorney General had granted the first relief in a generation, while the formal application program remained unopened. Both statements were true when made. Before acting on anything you read about § 925(c) — including this page — check what the Department of Justice says today.

A Presidential Pardon: The Realistic Federal Route

With expungement, set-aside, and ordinary restoration of civil rights unavailable for a federal conviction — and § 925(c) only beginning to show signs of life — the established federal route to lifting the firearms bar remains a presidential pardon.

A full, unconditional presidential pardon for a federal conviction generally removes the federal firearms disability tied to that conviction, because under § 921(a)(20) the pardoned conviction is no longer counted. Two cautions are essential. First, the pardon’s wording controls: if a pardon expressly states that the recipient may not possess firearms, the disability remains. Second, a pardon relieves only the conviction it actually covers — if a person has another conviction that independently triggers the firearms bar, that conviction still stands in the way.

A pardon is not quick or easy to obtain, and it is not available to everyone. But for a person with a federal conviction who is serious about lawfully restoring firearm rights, it is generally the route that actually exists. The firm’s guides to pardons and clemency and to restoration of rights after a pardon explain the process and the realistic timeline.

One further reminder: state firearms law is separate. A federal pardon addresses the federal disability, but a person must also be clear of any state-law prohibition before lawfully possessing a firearm. The complete analysis has to account for every conviction and every jurisdiction.

Second Amendment Challenges — An Evolving Area

In recent years, the constitutionality of the felon-in-possession ban has become one of the most heavily litigated questions in federal criminal law. The Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), tied Second Amendment analysis to text, history, and tradition, and defendants across the country immediately began arguing that § 922(g)(1) cannot constitutionally be applied to them — particularly where the predicate felony was old, nonviolent, or regulatory.

Two years later, United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024), upheld a neighboring subsection — the § 922(g)(8) bar for people under domestic-violence restraining orders — and reaffirmed both that legislatures may disarm individuals who pose a danger and that felon-dispossession laws remain “presumptively lawful.” But Rahimi did not decide § 922(g)(1), and the courts of appeals have split sharply over what Bruen and Rahimi mean for it:

• Third Circuit (en banc): Range v. Attorney General, 124 F.4th 218 (3d Cir. 2024), held § 922(g)(1) unconstitutional as applied to a man whose only disqualifying conviction was a decades-old false statement to obtain food stamps — the decision most directly relevant to nonviolent and white-collar predicates.
• Fifth Circuit: United States v. Diaz, 116 F.4th 458 (5th Cir. 2024), upheld the ban as applied to a defendant with a prior vehicle-theft conviction, reasoning from founding-era punishments for theft.
• Ninth Circuit (en banc): United States v. Duarte, 137 F.4th 743 (9th Cir. 2025), upheld § 922(g)(1) categorically, rejecting felony-by-felony analysis outright.

The Supreme Court has so far declined to referee that split. In January 2026 it denied review in Duarte, and through the spring of 2026 it turned away dozens of other § 922(g)(1) petitions even as new ones arrived almost weekly — all while taking up a challenge to a different subsection. On June 18, 2026, in United States v. Hemani, No. 24-1234, the Court held that the § 922(g)(3) bar on possession by an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance could not be applied, consistent with the Second Amendment, to a defendant whose only disqualifying conduct was occasional marijuana use the government never tied to any danger. Hemani was deliberately narrow: the Court expressly declined to decide § 922(g)(1), and signaled that nothing in its drug-user holding casts doubt on the felon-in-possession bar; it left untouched the settled rule that such bars are “presumptively lawful.” The felon-in-possession question this page addresses therefore remains exactly where the circuit split left it. Until the Court takes a § 922(g)(1) case, the constitutional answer depends on geography: a nonviolent offender with facts like Range’s might prevail in the Third Circuit and lose the identical argument in the Ninth.

The honest assessment, as of mid-2026, is unchanged in the way that matters most: a constitutional challenge is litigation, decided case by case — not a restoration mechanism. Range won relief because he brought and won his own lawsuit; the decision lifts no one else’s disability and binds only one circuit. Anyone watching this area should monitor it with counsel, not treat it as a present-day license to possess.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Our Firm Helps With Firearm-Rights Questions

This is an area where the answer changed twice while most websites were not looking — § 925(c) came back from the dead, and three federal circuits went three different directions on the Constitution. Our firm starts with the client’s complete conviction history, determines which disabilities actually attach and in which jurisdictions, and then matches the record against what exists today: the pardon route, the emerging DOJ relief program, and — in the right circuit, on the right facts — constitutional litigation. When a route is closed, we say so plainly; the worst outcome in this field is optimism that ends in a § 922(g)(1) indictment. Firearm rights are one strand of the broader web covered in our collateral consequences guide.

Talk With a Federal Defense Lawyer

Possession before relief is a felony; relief before possession is the entire game. In a paid, one-hour initial consultation, we identify every disabling conviction on your record, tell you which restoration routes are genuinely open in 2026, and map what pursuing the realistic one would involve. Book the conversation before you make any decision a prosecutor could read differently.