How to restore gun rights: papers to gather

How to restore gun rights: the order of work

How to restore gun rights under 18 U.S.C. 925(c) follows the Department's own sequence: prepare, then apply, then wait. The prepare step is where people lose time. Restore firearm rights after a felony, if that is the disability, still starts with the felony's own court file.

1. Write down every conviction and every later pardon, expungement, or restoration. The overview of gun rights restoration is the map of those words.
2. Order the court papers from the clerk of the convicting court: charging document, judgment, and proof the sentence, including supervision, was completed. For a federal case, start with that district court's clerk. For a state case, start with the convicting court's clerk.
3. Order state criminal records for the last 25 years, or since age 18, whichever is shorter, for each place lived and for any other arrest. The Department says a local law-enforcement record can stand in if a statewide report is unavailable.
4. Optionally order an FBI Identity History Summary to see what fingerprint-supported arrests the FBI has. The FBI FAQ lists an $18 fee, credit card, money order, or certified check, and a waiver process through identity@fbi.gov or (304) 625-5590 before filing if the fee cannot be paid. Requests are processed in date order. The FBI does not expedite them.
5. Only then start the Department's e-application. Fingerprints for that application are taken after the first part is submitted and a QR code arrives, at a participating post office. The Department's fingerprint page, updated September 22, 2026, says prints from anywhere else will not be accepted for this program.

What to ask an attorney

Ask which disability to name, whether a missing record can be replaced by the sworn statement in 28 CFR 107.10(f), and whether a presumption makes waiting wiser than filing. Bring the papers. Do not bring only a memory of the year.

The federal relief application is a records project before it is a writing project. Section 925(c) tells the Attorney General to look at the circumstances of the disability and at the applicant's record and reputation. The 2026 rule turns that sentence into a list. This article follows 28 CFR 107.10 and the Department of Justice pages that describe the portal. It is a map of those public lists. It is not a determination that any person should file, and it is not a determination that any file is complete.

Start with the disability you are asking about

Section 107.10(g)(1) says the application shall include a statement of all applicable prohibitions under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). "All" is doing work. A person can be prohibited for more than one reason. Naming only the oldest felony, and leaving out a domestic-violence misdemeanor or a mental-health adjudication, does not match the sentence. The statement is the applicant's, under the later perjury affirmation. This website does not prepare that legal characterization for a person. A person who is unsure which categories apply can read section 922(g) with a lawyer. The overview explains why the categories are not synonyms.

The application also includes written consent for the Department to obtain records about employment, medical history, military service, and criminal history, and for custodians to disclose them. That consent is section 107.10(g)(2). It is broad because the standard is broad.

Fingerprints, and the order the Department describes

Section 107.10(g)(3) says an individual applicant shall include an electronic fingerprint scan or two properly completed FBI Forms FD-1222. The Department's questions page, updated September 9, 2026, describes a sequence for the electronic portal: fingerprints come after the person submits the first part of the electronic application and receives a code by email, and they are taken through a participating United States post office. The rule states what must be in the application. The questions page states how the Department wants the portal used. If those two descriptions seem to differ in timing, follow the current page on justice.gov rather than a recollection of either one. Portal steps change. The regulation's demand for fingerprints does not become optional because a blog summarized it.

The same questions page says that once the electronic application is started, the person has 30 days to complete and submit it, and that a missed window means starting over. It also says the Department cannot, at this time, replace a lost link and PIN. Those are reasons to gather documents before clicking start, which is the Department's own advice on that page. Section 107.20(b) is a different 30-day period. If an application is incomplete, the applicant is notified and given 30 days to amend it. Failure to amend means the application is abandoned. An abandoned application is not counted as a denial for the reapplication presumption in section 107.70. The two 30-day clocks should not be mixed.

Court papers after a felony

For an applicant convicted of a felony, section 107.10(g)(4) requires a copy of the indictment, information, or other charging instrument; any plea agreement; any factual basis for a plea; any presentence report or other document prepared to aid in sentencing, or a response to it; the judgment or the record of the plea or finding of guilt; and a certificate from the relevant authority, such as a department of corrections, a probation office, or a parole board, stating the date the sentence was completed, including any term of supervision.

Old cases often lack a presentence report. Section 107.10(f) covers records that are unavailable because an official body failed to keep them, because of time, destruction, disaster, or fire, or for another reason that is not the applicant's fault or negligence. The substitute is a sworn statement of the underlying facts, charges, and disposition, and of the efforts to get the papers and why they are unavailable. "I did not look" is not the subsection's reason. The statement is sworn. It is not a place to guess at a charge number.

Court papers the rule requires must be certified as true copies by the court or other official, or must be the true copy that official gave the applicant. Electronic copies are allowed if the applicant follows the Department's instructions for them. A foreign-language record needs a full English translation, with the translator's certification of completeness, accuracy, and competence. Those rules are section 107.10(d) and (e).

Other disabilities have their own attachments

A mental-health adjudication or commitment brings section 107.10(g)(5): the order, the petition, medical records sufficient to characterize the diagnoses and the reasons, any later order restoring competency or rights, and a current certification from a licensed mental health professional about the condition. Section 107.60 says a person currently under a section 922(g)(4) disability is presumptively denied, absent extraordinary circumstances, if a state, territory, or federal agency has a relief program the person could use and the person has not sought relief or has been denied. The Department's questions page says a person is no longer prohibited under section 922(g)(4) if relief was granted under a program that meets the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. It also says that if the state offers no such program, the person may apply federally without that earlier step. The page names jurisdictions it says do not offer that relief, and it says the list may change. Read the page rather than a copied list, because the Department reserved the right to change it.

A dishonorable discharge or a general court-martial felony brings the service documents in section 107.10(g)(6), including the DD Form 214 and, if they exist, the charge sheet and the judgment. Renunciation of citizenship brings the formal renunciation and a supplemental statement, under section 107.10(g)(7). A misdemeanor crime of domestic violence brings the longer list in section 107.10(g)(8), described in the Lautenberg article. Any state application to expunge, set aside, or restore rights, and any decision on it, comes in under section 107.10(g)(9), whether or not it succeeded.

Criminal history across places lived

Section 107.10(g)(10) requires a criminal record check, meaning a list of arrests and convictions or a statement that there are none, for each state or locality where the applicant has resided since age 18 or for the last 25 years, whichever is shorter, and for each state or locality where the applicant has been arrested in that same window. A statewide report is used when it exists. This is often the slow part. Clerks and state repositories do not share one clock. The rule does not let the applicant pick a favorite decade and stop.

Military service since age 18, or for 25 years, whichever is shorter, requires the DD Form 214 set under section 107.10(g)(11), even when the disability is not a military one. Foreign records that would have been required if the events had happened in the United States come in under section 107.10(g)(12).

References and the applicant's own affirmation

Three reference affidavits are required by section 107.10(g)(13). The reference is not a relative by blood or marriage, has known the applicant for at least three years, and is not a person currently prohibited under section 922(g). The affidavit says, to the affiant's knowledge, that the applicant has not committed a crime other than traffic, parking, or petty offenses without force in the five years before the attestation; is not an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance as section 107.1 defines it; does not regularly abuse alcohol or other intoxicants; is not currently suffering from a mental health condition that would impair judgment or behavior; is a person of good character; has not threatened unlawful violence or attempted suicide in the past five years, whether or not authorities were told; and would not pose a danger if permitted to possess a firearm. Those are the rule's topics. A letter that says only "I have known this person and they are nice" does not cover the list.

The applicant affirms the same topics under penalty of perjury, plus two more: no membership or association, in the last 10 years, with a group of three or more people who acted together to commit any crime, and a statement that the applicant has provided the relevant information and that it is true. That is section 107.10(g)(14). A false material statement can void a later grant under section 107.80, which says relief is void from the start if the applicant willfully subscribed as true any material matter the applicant did not believe, or willfully omitted requested material information.

Fee, schedule, and what software can do

Section 107.40 authorizes a fee and a waiver or reduction for indigency. The final-rule preamble sets the figure at $30. The Department's home page says fee collection begins with the January 4, 2027 opening, after an invited phase and a November 4, 2026 public opening limited to the first 5,000 applicants. Those are the Department's dates as published on its program page. Check that page before relying on a calendar.

Rights Restore, from Desk Technologies, Inc., helps organize the kinds of papers this list describes: records requests, fingerprint steps, reference letters, and the applicant's account of what happened. The applicant files. The software does not submit the packet to the Department and does not decide the request. The beta page explains the free beta. A lawyer can decide strategy. The lawyer article describes that split.