The Trump Justice Department has restarted a program, dormant for more than three decades, that restores federal gun rights to people with certain felony convictions or indictments. Congress effectively halted the program in 1992 by blocking the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from using federal funds to review applications, after a Violence Policy Center report found that of 100 people who got their guns back, five were convicted of felony sexual assault, 11 of burglary and four of homicide, according to NPR.
The department sidestepped that funding ban by arguing that the underlying power rests with the attorney general, not the ATF. Ten people had their rights restored in April 2025, including actor Mel Gibson, who had pleaded no contest in 2011 to misdemeanor spousal battery of his former girlfriend. On February 6, 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi granted relief to 22 more people, whose names were published in the Federal Register on February 23 with no identifying details.
Most of the 22 had decades-old, nonviolent convictions. The exception was Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who was indicted in 2024 as a fake elector in the 2020 election, was never convicted, and still faces state felony charges; Trump had pardoned him for any federal charges in November 2025. A DOJ official told NPR that Hoffman was the only person on the list who had neither sought a pardon nor sued to regain his gun rights. Six Democratic members of Congress wrote that the department's actions “appear to have violated the law, flouted the express intent of Congress, and undermined a prudent public safety measure”; the department disputes that.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry said the 22 names were published in the Federal Register in March 2026. The notice was published February 23, 2026, for relief granted February 6. The title was also adjusted, because Hoffman has been indicted but not convicted.