New DOJ rule creates new process for restoring gun right to some with criminal convictions

As reported in this new Hill piece, the “Justice Department (DOJ) plans to create a process for those with criminal convictions to restore their gun rights.”  Here is more:

The interim rule, posted in the Federal Register Thursday, follows a February executive order from President Trump directing a review of the country’s gun restrictions to “assess any ongoing infringements.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) has the power to restore gun rights, but the agency has been blocked from doing so under congressional appropriations riders since 1992. Under the DOJ proposal, the attorney general would designate that power within the department.

DOJ said the rule “reflects an appropriate avenue to restore firearm rights to certain individuals who no longer warrant such disability based on a combination of the nature of their past criminal activity and their subsequent and current law-abiding behavior.”

The notice also said that “no constitutional right is limitless” and that they would be “screening out others for whom full restoration of firearm rights would not be appropriate.”

However, groups advocating against gun violence argue the policy would ease the process for those convicted of violent crimes to gain access to a weapon….

Gun rights groups celebrated the interim rule, with Gun Owners of America saying it would end the “legal limbo” for those seeking to restore their right to own a weapon. “For decades, law-abiding Americans who have had their gun rights unfairly restricted have been left in legal limbo — creating an unconstitutional de facto lifetime gun ban,” Erich Pratt, the group’s senior vice president, said in a statement.

It will be interesting to see if this development could end up playing some role in the on-going (and circuit-dividing) Second Amendment litigation over the broad federal prohibition on the possession of firearms by those with felony convictions.  I wonder if federal prosecutors might now argue, or federal courts might now hold, that just the possibility of firearm rights restoration can save a broad prohibition from even as-applied unconstitutionality.