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.
— Jacob Sullum in Criminal Justice Reformers Should Welcome Pam Bondi’s Gun Rights Restoration Initiative
I’m really conflicted on this. On the one hand, when a criminal serves his sentence, he has paid his debt to society and we as a society should consider him a member once again with all rights restored and his past not held against him. Otherwise, the now ex-criminal has no real incentive to stay on the straight and narrow. On the other hand, plenty of criminals come out of prison having learned no lesson at all and need to be kept far away from a weapon.
I’m not wise enough to declare an equitable judgement on these matters, but I’m equally certain that a politician will screw this matter up.
A criminal who has not served a day in jail is not going to allow any law to restrict their criminal activity. Likewise an ex con is not going to let any law restrict their criminal activity. The criminally minded are going to do as they please regardless of their past or present residence.
@Hush – Gosh, it’s almost like you understand the criminal mind or something! Don’t expect a politician to be able to follow that “tortuous” logic!
If a criminal is considered safe enough to return to the gen pop, then they should have their rights restored. If they can’t be trusted with a firearm, which they can certainly obtain legally or otherwise, then why should they be trusted at all?
You need to look at what this is intended to do. It, overall, is intended to restore the right to non-violent people who have paid their debt and do not represent a threat to society. It is not intended to restore the right to ‘hard core’ violent criminals who have demonstrated they do represent a threat to society.
For example, consider Mel Gibson. Sure, charged and convicted of a ‘domestic abuse’ thing and people say or post all sort of things trying to make him seem like a hard core ‘domestic abuser’ and throw it around like he is a danger to society because of the conviction. But when the case is looked at in detail at what really happened absent the hype the prosecution used and the claims of the woman that were greatly exaggerated and full of ‘false’ and the claims of others, we find his ‘domestic abuse’ was slapping a woman one time in an effort to save a child from injury. Basically, the woman was in a rage because her efforts to extort him of money he refused, and she was holding the child and was going to injure the child in her rage state – Gibson slapped her while trying to get the child away from her to keep the child from being injured. The reason he was convicted is because of the way the law was written, not because Gibson’s intent was ‘domestic abuse’ and contrary to the claims of the woman he had not been ‘domestically abusing’ her as was found out later (she had lied about it). So Mel Gibson paid his ‘debt to society’ on the charge, but is not actually a threat to society or the woman or anyone else – so should he have his 2A right? Yes, he should.
These are the types the program is intended to address, basically, those ‘excessively’ (or not ‘excessively) ‘punished’ for misdemeanor or class felony ‘one time’ events that were not actually intended-violence or not violent and not on going patterns and do not represent an on going threat to society.
Heck, Kamala Harris while AG in California had thousands of these types in prison – people who represented no threat to society and were not violent offenders. And when a court ordered them released and free (a prison over crowding issue), Kamala, via the prosecutors that worked for her, disobeyed the court order and argued they should remain in state custody to be used to fight fires in the state – note here, the excuse Kamala gave through her prosecutors wasn’t because they were violent hardened criminals, in fact they were non-violent offenders and most of them were very close to finishing their terms of imprisonment, and some already had and were still being held against their will. the excuse was to fight fires in forced servitude to the state – In other words, Kamala Harris was wanting to enslave free (by court order) people, enslave them in service to the state – The Democrat party, the party of slavery and persecution of people they don’t like. And democrats do this sort of stuff all across the nation every day, continue to persecute those types of people. So its not a mystery as to why Democrats are opposed to classes of American citizens having constitutional rights – persecution and slavery, its the Democrat Party way, its what they were founded on.
Note: I had to make multiple posts for the above because including it in one post did not allow it to post – which is odd because in single posts there is nothing that caused it to go to moderation or not post, yet the same wording all together in a single post it would not post and just back to the top of the page when I clicked the ‘Post Comment’ button. Tried multiple times, no moderation thing but just back to the top of the page and post not showing.
There are people convicted of felonies for excessive speed in school zones.
One guy I know of, for 28 MPH in a 20 MPH school zone limit, just as he was entering a school zone passing from a 40 MPH zone outside that and was slowing down to meet the 20 MPH limit.
The way the law was written at the time, if you got ticketed for going over the 20 MPH limit in a school zone it was up to a $500.00 fine and you could not just pay the ticket and fine and be done with it (mostly the fine was the minimum $100.00 except in very egregious cases like repeat offenders or dangerous driving practices that actually endangered someone then the max $500.00 was assessed). But the fine could be waived if you just paid the ticket, but to waive the fine you had to go before a judge and if the fine was waved you could pay the ticket ($30.00) and court costs ($80.00). That’s what this guy did, went before a judge to have the $100.00 fine waived, and intending to not fight it and just pay the ticket and be done with it. But for repeat offenders or dangerous driving practices that actually endangered someone there was a felony charge attached, and it was up to two years prison or probation and the $500.00 fine.
The guy goes to court to get the fine waived. The judge is a hard a$$, and the cop who issued the ticket says he thinks lives were intentionally endangered even though there was actually no one near at the time, no students walking or crossing, no busses, no one to endanger.
The guy was slowing down passing from a 40 MPH zone into the school 20 MPH zone and when stopped in the school zone was going 28 MPH. He wasn’t intending to speed in the school zone, not being familiar with that area he was just caught off guard by the sudden need to slow down from the posted 40 MPH to 20 MPH posted sign suddenly appearing after he comes around a blind curve, and was slowing down to the 20 MPH to, get this, obey the law. It not like he set out that day to go “Hey, I’m going to speed though this school zone at 28 MPH to endanger kids MUHahahahahaha!” like the cop portrayed it.
The judge invoked the felony charge and the $500.00 fine. The guy gets one year probation and the $500.00 fine. He was then a convicted felon, a prohibited person for gun ownership/possession, lost his 2A right AND his right to vote. Later, he did actually get his 2A right and right to vote back by getting them restored using state law processes … but he would have been a prime candidate for this federal program. Yet, with the anti-gun and democrat politicians he’s a dangerous convicted felon hardened criminal and an on-going violent threat to society.