The Justice Department is proceeding with plans to revive a moribund relief process for people who have lost their Second Amendment rights as a result of criminal convictions. The department's FY 2026 budget proposal, published earlier this month, includes funds for a Firearm Rights Restoration Initiative within the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
That is good news for Second Amendment advocates because it promises to ameliorate the injustices caused by 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. But because this particular penalty involves guns, Democrats who usually worry about excessively harsh criminal punishment are warning that any attempt to apply the disability more judiciously will endanger the public.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D–Ill.), for example, has proudly supported criminal justice reforms such as the Fair Sentencing Act, the FIRST STEP Act, and the elimination of the penal disparity between crack and cocaine powder. Yet Durbin, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Biden administration and is now its ranking member, recently joined five other Democratic legislators in complaining that Attorney General Pam Bondi wants to "help violent criminals regain firearms," which Durbin et al. say defies a congressional spending rider first enacted in 1992.
