Pardon gun rights: federal and state pardons

How pardon gun rights differ from expungement

Pardon gun rights come from an executive act. Expungement comes from a court or a statute. Section 921(a)(20) lists them separately, and both have an unless clause when the order expressly restricts firearms.

What to gather

1. The pardon itself, not a news account of it. Read whether it expressly restricts firearms.
2. A list of every other conviction. A pardon of one offense does not speak to another.
3. Any application for a state pardon or restoration, which the Department's required-documents page asks applicants to include if they made one.

What to ask an attorney

Ask whether the pardon is full or limited, whether its words trigger the unless clause, and whether a second conviction or a state ban is still in the file. The lawyer for gun rights restoration article is about that conversation, not a recommendation to skip it.

A pardon is an official act of forgiveness. In the federal system it comes from the President. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." That clause does not mention firearms. What a pardon does to a firearms disability is a question about the pardon's terms and about the firearms statute, not a question the Constitution answers in one line.

States have their own pardon processes, usually by a governor or a board created by state law. A state pardon is not a presidential pardon. It cannot forgive an offense against the United States. A presidential pardon cannot, by itself, repeal a state's criminal code. Keeping those two executives separate is the start of any honest explanation.

The federal "unless" clause

For the ban in 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), the definition that matters is 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(20). After it describes what "crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year" means, it says that any conviction which has been expunged, or set aside, or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored, shall not be considered a conviction for purposes of the federal firearms chapter. Then comes the unless clause: unless the pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms. What constitutes a conviction is determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held.

Read slowly, that text does three things. It recognizes a pardon as one way a conviction drops out of the federal definition. It warns that a pardon which itself forbids firearms does not drop the conviction out. And it points to the law of the place that entered the conviction, not to the law of whatever other government the person now asks for help.

A misdemeanor crime of domestic violence has a parallel provision in 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33)(B). A conviction is not a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence for the federal ban if it has been expunged or set aside, or if it is for an offense for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored, unless the pardon, expungement, or restoration expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms. The Lautenberg article stays on that definition. The point here is that "pardon" shows up in more than one federal firearms definition, and the unless clause shows up with it.

Beecham: the convicting jurisdiction

Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368 (1994), decided a recurring mistake. Two people had federal felony convictions. Their civil rights had been restored under state law. They argued that the restoration meant the federal convictions no longer counted under section 921(a)(20). The Supreme Court held that they could use the statute's exemption only if their civil rights had been restored under federal law, the law of the jurisdiction where the earlier proceedings were held. The choice-of-law sentence governs the exemption, including a restoration of civil rights. A state forgiveness does not rewrite a federal judgment.

The same logic is why a state pardon of a state conviction is not "a federal pardon by another name," and why a federal pardon is not a state pardon. Each one speaks for the government that entered the conviction. Whether that speech is enough, under the unless clause, still depends on the words of the pardon and on any separate prohibition that the pardon does not mention.

What the Department of Justice tells pardon recipients

The Department's Federal Firearm Rights Restoration questions page, updated September 9, 2026, asks: if a person was granted a federal pardon, does the person still need to apply to get firearm rights back? The Department's answer is "it depends." If the person was convicted only of a federal offense, the Department says no. It describes the Pardon Clause and says a full pardon granted by the President removes penalties and disabilities, including a firearm disability, resulting from the federal conviction. It then says that if the person was convicted of a federal offense but also has a separate, independent basis for a firearm prohibition, such as a state conviction or a prohibiting status, the person may need to seek federal firearms relief.

That answer is the Department's description of its own program. It is not a determination about a document this website has not seen. A pardon that is partial, or that expressly limits firearms, has to be read against the unless clause in section 921(a)(20), not against a slogan that "a pardon restores guns."

The same page says that, in criminal cases, state restoration of rights does not remove disabilities imposed by a federal conviction, and that a state restoration of a state conviction also may not remove federal disabilities. That sentence is about restoration generally, not only about pardons, and it matches the direction of Beecham. It is also a reason this series does not say "get a state pardon and the federal ban is gone."

A pardon is not section 925(c), and a 925(c) grant is not a pardon

Section 925(c) relief is an application to the Attorney General about a firearms disability. A pardon is forgiveness of an offense by the executive who has the pardon power. The Department's program is housed in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which also handles clemency, but the legal acts are still different. The questions page says the new rule states that ATF no longer administers restoration and that applications go through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Housing both subjects in one office does not make a relief grant into a pardon, or a pardon into a relief grant.

Federal Register notices of relief grants sometimes say the Attorney General reviewed materials submitted in a request for a pardon or for relief. A notice about named people is a notice about those people. It is not a rule that every pardon application is also a 925(c) grant, or the reverse.

If relief is granted under the 2026 rule, 28 CFR 107.30 still says the grant does not extend to a state-law prohibition. A presidential pardon of a federal offense does not, on that regulation's terms, become a state license to possess a firearm where state law still forbids it. State law has to be read on its own. This article does not state any state's pardon statute.

How to read a pardon document

The useful questions, all of them about the document and the statutes above, are these. Which government issued the pardon? Which offense does it name? Does the text expressly say the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms? Is there another conviction, or another status in section 922(g), that the pardon does not cover? None of those questions is answered by the fact that a person uses the word "pardon" in conversation.

Rights Restore does not decide whether a pardon is full, partial, or silent about firearms. It can help organize papers a person already has, including a copy of a pardon, for a packet the person files. The beta page explains that limit. A lawyer can read the pardon against the person's whole record. The article on lawyers describes that division of work without telling anyone to skip counsel or to hire counsel.