Attorney General Pam Bondi has moved to revive a federal rights-restoration mechanism that Congress quietly strangled in 1992. The Department of Justice submitted to the Office of the Federal Register a proposed rule under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) — the long-dormant “relief from disabilities” provision — that would give nonviolent prohibited persons a pathway to petition for the return of their Second Amendment rights. This is the administrative move I have been predicting on this channel for over a year, and watching it arrive is genuinely gratifying.
The Mechanism Congress Buried — and How Bondi Dug It Back Up
The statutory authority to restore firearm rights has always existed in 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). The Attorney General may, upon application, grant relief to any person prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) if the person “will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.” Congress never repealed that authority. What Congress did — starting with the fiscal year 1993 appropriations bill — was strip ATF of any funding to process those applications. That rider has been renewed every year since. The result: a functioning statutory right with no working mechanism to claim it.
Bondi’s legal move is correct. The appropriations rider restricts ATF specifically. It does not restrict the Attorney General or DOJ broadly. On March 20, 2025, DOJ published an interim final rule withdrawing the longstanding delegation of § 925(c) authority from ATF and vesting it directly in the Office of the Attorney General. The proposed rule is the next step — spelling out how that authority will be exercised. U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin announced his office is building a user-friendly online platform for 925(c) applications.
The DOJ statement released alongside the proposed rule put it plainly:
“For too long, countless Americans with criminal histories have been permanently disenfranchised from exercising the right to keep arms — a right every bit as constitutionally enshrined as the right to vote, the right to free speech, and the right to free exercise of religion — irrespective of whether they actually pose a threat. No longer.”
That language tracks exactly the constitutional framework I have been arguing here. Dangerousness. Violence. Not moral disapproval. Not political convenience.
How Range and Rahimi Set the Table
This did not happen in a vacuum. My read is that the path runs directly through two major cases.
In Range v. Attorney General United States, 69 F.4th 96 (3d Cir. 2023), the Third Circuit sitting en banc — 13-2 — held that the government failed to establish a historical tradition of disarming nonviolent offenders like Bryan Range. Circuit Judge Thomas M. Hardiman wrote the majority. Range’s 1995 Pennsylvania conviction was for making false statements on a food stamp application — technically triggering the federal bar under § 922(g)(1) because the offense carried a potential sentence exceeding one year — and the court said disarming him for life is not consistent with the Second Amendment.
Then came United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. 680 (2024). A lot of people told me that decision was bad for the Second Amendment. I disagreed then and I will say it again: Rahimi was good news. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for an 8-1 Court, and the holding was tight — disarmament is constitutionally permissible where a person has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another. Violence. Dangerousness. That limiting principle is a major asset for rights-restoration arguments.
When Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s office chose not to seek certiorari in Garland v. Range after SCOTUS vacated and remanded in light of Rahimi, I said here that the signal was unmistakable. The administration was not going to fight these cases one at a time in federal court. They were going to use the administrative process to restore rights at scale. That is precisely what this proposed rule does.
What the Process Will Look Like
The framework the DOJ spelled out: ultimate discretion to grant relief remains with the Attorney General, exercised case-by-case. Violent felons, registered sex offenders, and illegal aliens remain presumptively ineligible absent extraordinary circumstances. The focus is where the Constitution requires it to be — on violence and dangerousness, not on the categorical label of “felon.”
Consider the Martha Stewart situation. She was convicted in 2004 of lying to federal investigators and lost her federal firearm rights for life. The idea that a person loses a constitutional right permanently for a crime involving no violence and no threat to anyone is inconsistent with both Rahimi and Range. The proposed rule creates an off-ramp from that absurd outcome.
DOJ has announced its intent to build an online application system where prohibited persons can document their non-dangerousness and petition for rights restoration. Ed Martin’s pardon office will be the operational center. The proposed rule runs 45 pages — a dense piece of administrative machinery whose mechanics I intend to keep tracking as the rulemaking proceeds.
The Bigger Picture
I have been consistent on this channel: the Trump administration — with Pam Bondi at DOJ and Harmeet Dhillon heading the Civil Rights Division — is the most pro-Second Amendment administration in American history. This proposed rule is proof, not prediction.
The § 925(c) revival matters because it creates a vehicle for relief that does not require litigation. As-applied challenges like Range deliver justice one plaintiff at a time. An administrative restoration program can reach the potentially millions of Americans living under a firearms disability the Constitution may not support. Rather than defend categorical lifetime disarmament for nonviolent offenders in court — a position increasingly difficult to sustain under Bruen’s text-and-history methodology, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) — the administration is building an administrative path. The proposed rule is not final, and the comment period will run. But the direction is set, and it is the right one.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.