Justice Department restarts program to restore gun rights : NPR
An attendee at a gun rights rally open-carries his gun in a holster that reads “We the People,” from the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, in this 2019 photo at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash.
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Ted S. Warren/AP
Last month, the Department of Justice quietly published a list of 22 names in the Federal Register. With little explanation or fanfare, the department announced that these individuals had their federal gun rights restored.
Most of them had something in common: decades-old felony convictions. Many had been charged long ago and had lived for years without access to firearms.
There was one exception — with a much more recent charge: Republican Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman, who was indicted in 2024 for being a fake elector in 2020 -– and was one of dozens of people President Trump pardoned in November.
The restorations are part of a broader DOJ push to revive a program that’s been dormant for more than three decades. It allows people with certain felony convictions — or even indictments — to regain their gun rights, as part of an effort to undo a “disability” and give back Second Amendment protections to people no longer seen as a threat to public safety.
The effort restarted last April, when 10 people had their rights restored — including (controversially) Mel Gibson; the actor and director had been sentenced for a misdemeanor battery of his girlfriend.
The DOJ’s work on this program follows a landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. The ruling has led to a host of challenges to gun laws in the U.S. — including those that bar felons from owning firearms.
The DOJ defended its decision to restore rights, saying the people on this latest list were all convicted of nonviolent offenses, such as passing counterfeit money or receiving stolen vehicles. (Hoffman, the outlier, was never convicted and still faces state felony charges related to the fake elector case.)
“For most recipients, these nonviolent offenses were their only crimes, and nearly all committed these crimes over 20 years ago, with at least four recipients having committed their crimes over 40 years ago,” the department said in a statement to NPR. “No one who received relief has been charged with any additional criminal conduct in the time since their convictions.”
While the federal government is granting forgiveness through federal law, states can still forbid certain people from getting guns through stricter laws at the local level.
Groups worry about potential loopholes
NPR spoke to two recipients of the gun pardon who expressed gratitude at getting to own guns again. One of them, Nick Sabatine, a 74-year-old lawyer from Pennsylvania, said he is looking forward to going hunting again.
But gun control groups and other critics say the opaqueness of the decisions — and the inclusion of Hoffman on the list — leave the potential for loopholes and future harm.
The department says on its website that it plans to launch an online application portal. But a year later, no final rule or formal process has been completed, though the DOJ has allowed the public to submit comments on the interim final rule.
There are scant details about how the DOJ decided which people should be on the list.
Kris Brown, president of the gun violence prevention group Brady United, said the lack of transparency could lead to violent offenders getting their guns back.
While there is no evidence the individuals on the list were seeking favor with Trump in return for this pardon, Brown notes Hoffman’s inclusion raises hard questions of “whether the evaluation [to get gun rights restored] is how much you’ve given to Trump, or how much you’re planning to curry favor with him,” she said.
A donor listed as Jacob Michael Hoffman in Arizona, matching the name of the indicted elector, gave about $600 in total to various Republican political causes in 2024, including several Trump-aligned political action committees, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
Hoffman didn’t respond to NPR’s questions.
Congress previously put a stop to this program
Brown’s fears of violent offenders getting guns have some precedent.
Congress effectively halted the gun rights restoration process in 1992 after evidence of exactly that happening.
Lawmakers acted after a report from Violence Policy Center showed out of 100 people who got their guns back, five were convicted of felony sexual assault; 11 of burglary and four of homicide. On top of that, the program was expensive and took dozens of staff to run, the Violence Policy Center found.
So Congress blocked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from using federal funds to review individual applications.
Last year, however, the DOJ took over the program, effectively bypassing the congressional prohibition by arguing that the underlying power to grant relief rests with Attorney General Pam Bondi, not with the ATF, a DOJ agency.
Dru Stevenson, a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston who has written about gun rights restoration, said, “The budget rider doesn’t say the federal government can’t do this. It only says ATF can’t. So this is a very lawyerly, splitting-hairs workaround.”
Six Democratic lawmakers have accused Bondi of violating federal law by reviving the process in this way — which the DOJ disputes.
In a letter last year, after the first 10 people had their gun rights restored in this way, Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Grace Meng and Jamie Raskin and Sens. Patty Murray, Dick Durbin and Chris Van Hollen called on the DOJ to stop restoring gun rights “immediately.”
“Your actions appear to have violated the law, flouted the express intent of Congress, and undermined a prudent public safety measure,” the letter said. The lawmakers have not filed a lawsuit or made further moves to stop the program from proceeding, and declined further comment.
And the current DOJ has not shared details about how it plans to address the expenses and staffing challenges Congress identified over 30 years ago.
Stevenson said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the interim rule, which he described as reasonable and similar to the traditional pardon process.
He argued that agency review is better suited than a judge is to assessing whether someone poses a real danger to the community because, based on the few details the DOJ has shared on what its approach will be, staffers will be tasked with closely reviewing criminal and personal backgrounds, details of an individual’s crime and references.
“It’s the lesser of two evils,” Stevenson said. “This is the type of thing that bureaucrats are good at: Getting a file, asking for verification, collecting records” and checking it all.
Absent any legislative or administrative pathway, he said, people looking to regain their Second Amendment rights must otherwise turn to the courts. And that, he believes, offers a less thorough and case-by-case analysis that this kind of decision requires.
“The appellate courts aren’t holding trials or weighing any new evidence or anything like that,” and making this decision in a vacuum, Stevenson said.
Who made the list?
As to whom the DOJ decided deserved to be on the list, details are sparse. Beyond the 22 names of the individuals with restored rights, the DOJ offered no identifying information in the Federal Register.
A DOJ official said department staff and Bondi reviewed records and background checks to confirm recipients are “law-abiding citizens” with good reputations in their communities. The official declined to discuss specific details of Bondi’s deliberations but said the current vetting mirrors what is expected in the final rule, which is pending while the agency reviews thousands of public comments.
The official said the agency is reviewing two main categories of people: those who applied for presidential pardons and indicated, in their paperwork, that they wanted their gun rights restored in their applications, and individuals involved in civil litigation challenging the federal prohibition. About 15 of the 22 people on the list had sought pardons, and six were engaged in litigation, the official said. Hoffman is the only one who did not seek a pardon or sue to regain his gun rights.
NPR attempted to contact every person on this list and left voicemails and emails. Most didn’t respond.
One person who did was Sabatine, the lawyer from Pennsylvania. He lost his right to own a gun after pleading guilty to filing a false tax form about 12 years ago, he told NPR.
He said he contacted the DOJ last summer after following litigation over the constitutionality of federal gun bans for certain offenders. He says the DOJ told him about the restoration program and instructed him to submit an affidavit and other records affirming he had not committed further crimes.
“I did my sentence. I paid my fines, I paid my taxes. Adding an additional loss of my Second Amendment rights didn’t seem to make any sense to me,” Sabatine said.
Arizona state senator Jake Hoffman, seen here in a 2024 photo at the Capitol in Phoenix, was on a DOJ list of people whose gun rights were restored.
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The Outlier
Hoffman appears to be the one exception on the list. He was indicted by an Arizona grand jury, along with 17 other people, in April 2024 for his involvement in efforts to fraudulently overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to benefit Trump.
He pleaded not guilty and has never been tried or convicted while the state weighs whether to bring charges to a new grand jury. Unlike the rest of the individuals on this list, Hoffman did not serve time in jail or go years without access to a firearm.
As for Hoffman, the DOJ official said the department decided that restoring his gun rights “was not contrary to public interest,” without elaborating further.
Hoffman was one of dozens of people who received a pardon from Trump in November after being accused of efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A federal pardon doesn’t apply to state charges, however. Hoffman didn’t return NPR’s request for comment via email, phone or through his office.
The DOJ official confirmed that the Arizona lawmaker had not been convicted and, like others who had their gun rights restored, proved he is a “law abiding citizen” – despite his still-active felony case.
For critics of the program, Hoffman’s inclusion raises even bigger questions about the Department of Justice’s decision-making.
“Just as it did with Mel Gibson, the administration once again restored gun rights to a group of people who served their time from criminal convictions years ago and tried to slip in a political supporter without anyone noticing,” Brown, from Brady United, said in a statement.
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