The DOJ’s Rights Restoration Process Isn’t Enough to Satisfy the Second Amendment

The Department of Justice has been arguing for months now that various courts should either uphold federal statutes prohibiting gun ownership for anyone convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison, or at the very least hold off judgment until the DOJ’s rights restoration rule takes effect and individual plaintiffs try to regain their rights through that process. 

The DOJ reiterated that stance before an en banc panel of the Third Circuit today in two separate cases challenging Section 922(g)(1), but in doing so the government ended up demonstrating why the pending rule simply isn’t enough to satisfy the Second Amendment’s protections. 

Says because executive is making rights restoration process a reality, the law is constitutional.

Judge asks: what is status of that proposed rulemaking.

Govt responds that it is working on it…

Judge says fair enough, but are people just supposed to wait?

(FYI, at Shot…

— SAF (@2AFDN) February 11, 2026

Let’s assume that Blanche is right, and that in just a few weeks the process will officially available for anyone who wants to try to get their rights restored. Did you know that under the proposed rule someone who has their right to keep and bear arms by the Attorney General can have it stripped away again by future administrations?

Judge pressing Prince on why the process isn’t enough, govt moving forward with it even though these cases aren’t forcing them to yet.

Prince says they are challenging the constitutionality of the disarmament, and there is no true relief mechanism because it is temporary (next…

— SAF (@2AFDN) February 11, 2026

Second Amendment attorney Joshua Prince also argued that there are several criminal offenses that presumptively place the rights restoration process off limits to those convicted, including non-violent crimes like possessing firearms and marijuana. 

Oddly, the DOJ’s attorney essentially agreed with the argument that 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional… unless there’s a rights restoration process available. 

This is kind of extraordinary. Government is basically agreeing 922(g)(1) is overexpansive trash, but it’s fine and constitutional as long as the government patches things up on the back end.

— SAF (@2AFDN) February 11, 2026

But if the restored right can be stripped away by another Attorney General, then I have to agree with Prince that the proposed rule really isn’t a true mechanism for relief.  

Besides, if the government concedes that 95% of 922(g)(1) cases would likely result in rights being restored if these individuals applied to the Attorney General for relief, doesn’t it make more sense to simply not deprive them of their Second Amendment rights in the first place? 

The Third Circuit should expand upon its decision in Range v. Garland and conclude that 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional, at least at it applies to individuals convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year in prison who aren’t judicially determined to be “dangerous.” Someone who passed a bad check, falsified their income on a food stamp application, or were even convicted of tax fraud shouldn’t automatically lose their right to keep and bear arms, and there’s no basis in our national tradition of gun ownership or regulation to support disarming them after they’ve served their sentence. 

It’s likely that the Third Circuit will hold off on issuing an opinion in the cases heard today until the Supreme Court decides U.S. v. Hemani, which deals with the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(3)’s prohibition on gun ownership for “unlawful” users of drugs. The two statutes aren’t identical, but they are related, and we may get an idea of where the Court will come down when oral arguments take place in early March. 

As for the DOJ’s rights restoration rule, as proposed it contains several flaws. Let’s hope that the final rule addresses those issues, including the impermanent nature of the restoration. If not, and future AGs can strip someone of their rights simply because they disagree with the decision to restore someone’s Second Amendment rights, the rule will be so fundamentally flawed that it could easily prove to be meaningless. 

Editor’s Note: The anti-gun left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.