Melynda Vincent, a Utah social worker specializing in drug harm reduction, was convicted of bank fraud in 2008 because she paid for groceries with a bad check. Seventeen years later, Vincent is still not allowed to own a gun or even temporarily possess one.
A new Justice Department program aims to help people like Vincent by reviving a moribund relief process for Americans who have lost their gun rights due to criminal convictions. That is good news for Second Amendment advocates, because it promises to ameliorate the impact of an illogical, constitutionally dubious law that deprives people of the right to armed self-defense even when they pose no plausible threat to public safety. It is also good news for criminal justice reformers, because it addresses a lifelong penalty that irrationally punishes nonviolent offenders long after they have served their formal sentences.
Under 18 USC 922(g)(1), which Congress enacted in 1968 as part of the Gun Control Act, it is a felony to receive or possess a firearm if you have been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration. It doesn’t matter if it was a violent crime, how long ago it was committed, or what sentence was actually imposed.
Several federal appeals courts have said that disability may be unconstitutional as applied to specific nonviolent offenders. But until recently, the only recourse for people who could not afford such litigation was a federal or state pardon—an iffy prospect.
Another provision of the Gun Control Act, 18 USC 925(c), was supposed to offer an alternative. It authorizes the attorney general to restore gun rights when “the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant’s record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety,” provided “the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.”
That power historically has been delegated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). But a congressional spending rider originally enacted in 1992 barred the ATF from using any part of its budget to consider applications under Section 925(c).
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who says she is acting in response to President Donald Trump’s February 7 executive order “Protecting Second Amendment Rights,” thinks she has found a way around that restriction. In an interim final rule that took effect in March, she rescinded the ATF’s authority over Section 925(c) applications, which she says will now be handled by the Office of the Pardon Attorney. The Justice Department’s FY 2026 budget proposal included funds for a Firearm Rights Restoration Initiative within that office.
Democratic critics of Bondi’s initiative, including legislators who ordinarily worry about disproportionate criminal penalties and the lifelong ancillary consequences of conviction records, complain that she wants to “help violent criminals regain firearms.” In a June 18 letter to Bondi, six Democratic lawmakers said she is flouting the will of Congress, which “intended that those most likely to commit crimes—particularly those with prior convictions—do not regain access to firearms.”
That take ignores the sweeping reach of Section 922(g)(1), which applies to millions of Americans with no history of violence. “Many felonies are not violent in the least, raising no particular suspicion that the convict is a threat to public safety,” notes UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. “Perjury, securities law violations, embezzlement, obstruction of justice, and a host of other felonies do not indicate a propensity for dangerousness.”
Vincent’s lawyers, who want the Supreme Court to decide whether the Second Amendment allows the government to disarm people based on nothing more than a nonviolent criminal conviction, add some more examples. They note that Section 922(g)(1) can be triggered by state offenses such as adultery, defacing a school building, “repeatedly sharing streaming websites’ passwords,” “temporarily using someone else’s car without their consent,” and “using a telephone to make a single anonymous call to annoy or embarrass.” They add that federal law “includes many felonies that involve no danger,” such as “knowingly and unlawfully ‘export[ing] any fish or wildlife'” or making “an unauthorized recording of a movie” in a theater.
As Bondi’s critics see it, these are all “serious or violent crimes” that should result in permanent loss of the right to arms. That position is hard to reconcile with the Second Amendment’s text and history. It also clashes with the goal of making sure that the punishment fits the crime.
