Gun Rights Restoration by State

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

How does firearm rights restoration work state by state?

It depends entirely on which government convicted you. For a state conviction, 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) makes that state’s expungement, set-aside, pardon, or restoration of civil rights lift the federal bar too — unless the relief keeps any firearms restriction in place. For a federal conviction, no state action of any kind has any effect. Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368 (1994).

Key takeaways on state firearm rights restoration

• The convicting jurisdiction is the only jurisdiction that can forgive you. Beecham.
• State relief for a state conviction lifts the federal bar only through § 921(a)(20), and only if the relief has no firearms carve-out. Caron v. United States, 524 U.S. 308 (1998), makes that all-or-nothing.
• The relevant “civil rights” are the rights to vote, hold office, and serve on a jury. Logan v. United States, 552 U.S. 23 (2007).
• States fall into four patterns: automatic, automatic with carve-outs, petition to a court, and executive clemency only.
• A state statute that lets you possess a gun at home only — as Texas does — is not the same as restored rights, and relying on it can leave you federally prohibited.
• Since 2026, the federal § 925(c) route is open again and reaches disabilities no state can touch.

Start here: which government convicted you?

Everything on this page turns on this, so it goes first.

Section 921(a)(20) contains a choice-of-law clause: “What constitutes a conviction of such a crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held.” It then contains an exemption clause: a conviction that “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 this chapter, unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.”

In Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368 (1994), the Supreme Court held that the first clause governs the second. “Asking whether a person has had civil rights restored is thus just one step in determining whether something should ‘be considered a conviction.’ By the terms of the choice-of-law clause, this determination is governed by the law of the convicting jurisdiction.” The petitioners had federal convictions and state restorations of rights, and the Court held they “can take advantage of § 921(a)(20) only if they have had their civil rights restored under federal law.”

The Court also gave a structural reason: the other items in the exemption clause — pardons, expungements, and set-asides — “are either always or almost always . . . done by the jurisdiction of conviction,” and “[t]hat several items in a list share an attribute counsels in favor of interpreting the other items as possessing that attribute as well.”

So:

Your prohibiting conviction	Does state relief help?	What does
Federal	No. Not a governor’s pardon, not a state expungement, not automatic restoration, not a certificate of relief. None of it.	A presidential pardon, or relief from the Attorney General under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c)
State	Yes, if it comes from the convicting state and carries no firearms carve-out	That state’s expungement, set-aside, pardon, or restoration of civil rights — or § 925(c) relief, which reaches any federal disability
Both	Partially. State relief fixes the state conviction only	You need relief for each conviction separately

The practical warning is worth stating bluntly, because this is the most expensive mistake in this area: people with federal convictions spend years pursuing state relief that was never capable of solving their problem. A governor’s pardon of a state offense you also happen to have does nothing about the federal conviction sitting underneath it.

For a state conviction: the three rules that decide whether state relief works

Assume the conviction is a state conviction from State X, and State X has given you something — an expungement, a set-aside, a pardon, a certificate, or automatic restoration on completion of sentence. Whether that lifts the federal bar turns on three questions, each answered by a Supreme Court case.

Rule 1: Did you actually lose civil rights in the first place?

If the route is “restoration of civil rights,” something must have been lost. Logan v. United States, 552 U.S. 23 (2007), holds that the § 921(a)(20) exemption “does not cover the case of an offender who retained civil rights at all times, and whose legal status, postconviction, remained in all respects unaltered by any state dispensation.” The Court put the linguistic point simply: restoration of a thing never lost is “a definitional impossibility.”

Logan also fixes what “civil rights” means for this purpose. Although § 921(a)(20) does not define the term, the Court noted that “courts have held, and petitioner agrees, that the civil rights relevant under the above-quoted provision are the rights to vote, hold office, and serve on a jury.”

That matters in two directions. States vary in which of those three they take away and which they give back, and a state that restores voting rights alone may not have restored “civil rights” in the sense § 921(a)(20) requires. And where a conviction never cost you any of the three — common for misdemeanors and for some lower-class felonies — the restoration route is unavailable, and you need expungement, set-aside, or a pardon instead.

Rule 2: Does the relief keep any firearms restriction?

This is where most state relief fails federally, and the rule is unforgiving.

Caron v. United States, 524 U.S. 308 (1998), involved a Massachusetts restoration that gave the petitioner back his civil rights but still barred him from carrying handguns outside his home while permitting rifles and shotguns. The Court held the conviction still counted federally — for everything: “Either the restorations forbade possession of ‘firearms’ and the convictions count for all purposes, or they did not and the convictions count not at all. The unless clause looks to the terms of the past restorations alone and does not refer to the weapons at issue in the present case.”

Read that again with the practical consequence attached. Under Caron, a state scheme that says you may own a hunting rifle but not a handgun leaves you federally prohibited from owning either one. Partial state permission is worse than useless federally — it is affirmatively disqualifying, and it looks like permission.

Caron also settled one point in the applicant’s favor: relief “by operation of law rather than by pardon or the like” counts. “Nothing in the text of § 921(a)(20) requires a case-by-case decision to restore civil rights to this particular offender.” A state that restores rights automatically, by statute, to a whole class of people qualifies just as a discretionary pardon would.

Rule 3: Did the relief come from the convicting state?

Beecham again. Relief from State Y does nothing about a conviction from State X, and nothing at all about a federal conviction. This catches people who moved: a person convicted in one state, who later obtains a certificate or restoration in the state they now live in, is still prohibited by the original conviction.

One superseded authority to watch for

Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103 (1983), held that whether a person was “convicted” is “necessarily . . . a question of federal, not state, law,” and that a state expunction did not lift the federal disability. Congress responded in 1986 by writing the choice-of-law clause into § 921(a)(20). Beecham records that response directly, noting that in enacting the clause “legislators may have been simply responding to our decision in Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103 (1983), which held that federal law rather than state law controls the definition of what constitutes a conviction.”

Guidance still citing Dickerson for the flat proposition that state relief is irrelevant is citing law Congress changed.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The document a client brings in almost never answers the question by itself. A certificate that says “civil rights restored” tells you nothing until you know which rights that state takes away, which it gives back, and whether any firearms provision survives elsewhere in the state code. Caron‘s “unless” clause looks to the terms of the restoration, and the terms are frequently spread across three statutes and a form. The analysis is a reading exercise across the whole of the state’s scheme, not a look at the certificate.

The four patterns states follow

Every state’s scheme is its own, but they cluster into four shapes. Knowing which shape you are dealing with tells you what to look for.

Pattern	How it works	The federal question it raises	Verified example in this page
1. Automatic restoration	Rights return by operation of law on completion of sentence, with no filing	Does the automatic restoration cover firearms, or does the state keep a separate firearms bar? Under Caron, a retained bar is fatal	Arizona, for a first felony offense — Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-907
2. Automatic, with a waiting period and offense carve-outs	Rights return after a defined period, but a class of serious offenses is excluded and needs more	Does the waiting period end the state bar entirely, or leave a residual restriction?	Michigan — Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.224f
3. Petition to a court	The person files, the prosecutor may respond, and a judge decides	Is the order unconditional? A conditional order can fail Caron	Virginia — Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-308.2(C); Minnesota — Minn. Stat. § 609.165
4. Executive clemency only	Restoration comes from the governor or a clemency board, with no judicial route	Does the grant expressly restore firearm authority, or only civil rights?	Florida — Fla. Stat. §§ 790.23, 944.292

A fifth situation exists and is not really a pattern: states with a limited statutory allowance rather than restoration. Texas is the example, and it is the trap discussed below.

Six states, verified

Each of the following is stated from the current statutory text. Every other state’s scheme has to be verified the same way before anyone relies on it.

Arizona — automatic for a first offense, with carve-outs

Arizona restores civil rights automatically to a first-time felony offender. Under Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-907(A), “[o]n completion of probation for an offense committed in this state or absolute discharge from imprisonment, any person who has not previously been convicted of a felony offense shall automatically be restored any civil rights that were lost or suspended as a result of the conviction if the person pays all victim restitution imposed.”

For an Arizona offense, no application is needed — and “if the person does file an application, the court shall grant the application without receiving a response from the state or holding a hearing.” For an out-of-state or federal conviction, the person is eligible for automatic restoration on the same terms but must file an application, which the court “shall grant” without a response or hearing.

Firearm rights are treated separately. Section 13-907(C) provides that the automatic-restoration section “does not apply to a person’s right to possess a firearm” where the person was convicted of a dangerous offense under § 13-704 or a serious offense as defined in § 13-706 (or an out-of-state equivalent). Where automatic firearm restoration is unavailable, § 13-907(D) directs the person to § 13-910, under which “the court may order the restoration of the right to possess a firearm.”

Two things to notice. Restitution is a condition, not a formality — an unpaid balance means rights were never restored. And the Arizona restoration of civil rights arising from an out-of-state or federal conviction is a matter of Arizona law about Arizona disabilities; under Beecham it does not cure the original conviction federally.

Michigan — automatic after a waiting period, with a second track for serious felonies

Michigan sets two clocks. Under Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.224f(1), a person convicted of a felony “shall not possess, use, transport, sell, purchase, carry, ship, receive, or distribute a firearm in this state until the expiration of 3 years after all of the following circumstances exist”: the person “has paid all fines imposed,” “has served all terms of imprisonment imposed,” and “has successfully completed all conditions of probation or parole imposed.”

For a specified felony, § 750.224f(2) requires 5 years after those same three conditions and that “[t]he person’s right to possess . . . a firearm has been restored under section 4 of 1927 PA 372, MCL 28.424.” A “specified felony” is defined to include felonies with an element of “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force,” felonies involving controlled substances, unlawful possession or distribution of a firearm, unlawful use of an explosive, and burglary or breaking and entering of an occupied dwelling, or arson.

Michigan also addresses post-conviction relief directly: § 750.224f(9) provides that the section “does not apply to a conviction that has been expunged or set aside, or for which the person has been pardoned, unless the expunction, order, or pardon expressly provides that the person shall not possess a firearm or ammunition” — language that tracks the federal “unless” clause.

The federal reading is the important part. For a non-specified felony, the three-year period ends the state bar with no residual firearms restriction. For a specified felony, the state bar does not end until the § 28.424 restoration issues — so the five years alone accomplish nothing.

Virginia — petition to a circuit court, after civil rights are restored first

Virginia requires two steps in order. Under Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-308.2, “no person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to petition for such an order unless his civil rights have been restored” by the Governor or other appropriate authority. Only then may the person “petition the circuit court of the jurisdiction in which he resides” — or, for a non-resident, in a county or city where the last disqualifying conviction was entered.

A copy of the petition “shall be mailed or delivered to the attorney for the Commonwealth for the jurisdiction where the petition was filed who shall be entitled to respond and represent the interests of the Commonwealth,” and “[t]he court shall conduct a hearing if requested by either party.” The court may grant the petition in its discretion, for good cause shown, and issue a restoration order; “[t]he provisions of this section relating to firearms, ammunition for a firearm, and stun weapons shall not apply to any person who has been issued a restoration order pursuant to this subsection.”

Virginia also handles gubernatorial relief expressly: the prohibition does not apply to a person pardoned or whose political disabilities have been removed under Article V, § 12 of the Virginia Constitution — but the Governor “may expressly place conditions upon the reinstatement of the person’s right to ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.”

That last clause is a Caron problem waiting to happen. A conditional gubernatorial restoration is exactly the kind of relief that “expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms” — and if it does, the conviction still counts federally.

Note the date: the current version of § 18.2-308.2 carries an effective date of July 1, 2026. Anyone relying on an older description of Virginia’s procedure should confirm against the current text.

Minnesota — automatic restoration on discharge, lifetime bar for crimes of violence, and a judicial petition

Minnesota’s structure is unusually clear. Under Minn. Stat. § 609.165, subd. 1, “[w]hen a person has been deprived of civil rights by reason of conviction of a crime and is thereafter discharged, such discharge shall restore the person to all civil rights and to full citizenship, the same as if such conviction had not taken place.” Discharge occurs “by order of the court following stay of sentence or stay of execution of sentence” or “upon expiration of sentence.”

But the order of discharge “must provide that a person who has been convicted of a crime of violence, as defined in section 624.712, subdivision 5, is not entitled to ship, transport, possess, or receive a firearm or ammunition for the remainder of the person’s lifetime.”

Two exits from that lifetime bar are written into the statute:

• A judicial petition. A person barred because of a crime-of-violence conviction “may petition a court to restore the person’s ability to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms,” and “[t]he court may grant the relief sought if the person shows good cause to do so and the person has been released from physical confinement.” If a petition is denied, “the person may not file another petition until three years have elapsed without the permission of the court.”
• Federal § 925(c) relief. The statute provides that a person who “has received a relief of disability under United States Code, title 18, section 925, or whose ability to possess firearms and ammunition has been restored under subdivision 1d, shall not be subject to the restrictions of this subdivision.”

That second exit is worth pausing on. Minnesota law expressly recognizes federal § 925(c) relief as removing the state lifetime bar. With the federal route reopened in 2026, that provision has practical effect for the first time in three decades.

Florida — clemency only

Florida takes civil rights away by constitutional operation and gives them back only through the executive. Under Fla. Stat. § 944.292(1), upon conviction of a felony “the civil rights of the person convicted shall be suspended in Florida until such rights are restored by a full pardon, conditional pardon, or restoration of civil rights granted pursuant to s. 8, Art. IV of the State Constitution.”

The firearms prohibition is in Fla. Stat. § 790.23(1), which makes it unlawful for a person to “own or to have in his or her care, custody, possession, or control any firearm, ammunition, or electric weapon or device” after conviction of a Florida felony, “a crime against the United States which is designated as a felony,” or an out-of-state or foreign felony punishable by more than a year.

The exception is narrow and precisely worded: § 790.23(2) provides that the section does not apply to a person “[c]onvicted of a felony whose civil rights and firearm authority have been restored,” or one “[w]hose criminal history record has been expunged pursuant to s. 943.0515(1)(b).”

Note the two-part phrase. Florida distinguishes restoration of civil rights from restoration of firearm authority, and grants the two separately. A Floridian holding a restoration-of-civil-rights certificate that is silent on firearms has not satisfied § 790.23(2) — and, under Caron, has not satisfied § 921(a)(20) either.

Note also that § 790.23(1)(c) sweeps in federal felony convictions for purposes of Florida’s own prohibition. Florida clemency can address the Florida disability; it cannot address the federal one. That is Beecham.

Texas — the trap that is not restoration at all

Texas is the state most often described online as “letting felons have guns after five years.” What the statute actually does is narrower, and the gap is dangerous.

Under Tex. Penal Code § 46.04(a), a person convicted of a felony commits an offense if he possesses a firearm “(1) after conviction and before the fifth anniversary of the person’s release from confinement following conviction of the felony or the person’s release from supervision under community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision, whichever date is later; or (2) after the period described by Subdivision (1), at any location other than the premises at which the person lives.”

Read subdivision (2) carefully. After five years, Texas does not restore anything. It narrows its own offense so that possession is not a Texas crime at the place where the person lives — and remains a Texas crime everywhere else.

Two consequences follow, and both are serious.

Federally, this is not a restoration of civil rights, an expungement, a set-aside, or a pardon. It is a limitation on the scope of a state criminal statute. Section 921(a)(20) exempts a conviction only where one of those four events has occurred, and even then only where no firearms restriction survives. Texas law continues to make possession away from home a state offense. A person with a Texas felony who buys a firearm in year six is, at minimum, running a serious federal risk — and the fact that Texas does not prosecute possession at home is not a federal defense.

Within Texas, it is a home-only rule. Carrying to a range, a hunting lease, a friend’s house, or a vehicle is outside the statutory allowance.

Texas has separate mechanisms — restoration of rights, pardons through the Board of Pardons and Paroles — and those are the routes that can produce relief that § 921(a)(20) recognizes. Section 46.04 is not one of them.

The full fifty-state picture

The six profiles above are the ones that illustrate the patterns most clearly. The complete set is now built and maintained as a separate, dated data asset: the firearm rights restoration by state table, which carries every jurisdiction’s possession statute, whether that statute reaches a conviction entered by another sovereign, its offense carve-outs, any restoration clause inside the statute itself, and the effective date of the version read — plus a per-row verification date.

Four of its fifty-one rows spent a while deliberately blank. Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee license their statutory codes to commercial vendors instead of publishing them freely, so they could not be read on the first pass — and they said “not verified” rather than carrying a guess. They were filled only when the annotated code text itself was obtained, and all fifty-one rows now carry verified statutory text. That sequence is the point on a subject where the cost of being wrong is a prosecution under § 922(g)(1): most published fifty-state charts never had four blank rows — not because they verified those four, but because they copied someone who did not.

Fourteen jurisdictions turned out to have something in the statutory text that a summary chart does not carry: a caption that misdescribes the offense, a citation that has been renumbered, a waiting period that narrows the bar instead of ending it, or a restoration clause that omits one of the statute’s own tiers. Those are itemized on the table page.

Everything in the rest of this guide applies regardless of which row you are in, because the federal analysis does not vary by state.

Bars that end on their own

One pattern deserves separate treatment because it is invisible in most write-ups: a number of states impose a possession bar that simply expires. There is no petition, no certificate, and no restoration event — after a stated period, the statute stops applying to you.

Verified examples include Alabama (five years for a single felony), Alaska (ten years after unconditional discharge, excluding priors under AS 11.41), Louisiana (ten years from completion of sentence, and only for its enumerated offenses), New Mexico (ten years after sentence or probation, whichever is later — the clock is written into the definition of “felon” itself), North Dakota (ten years for violent felonies and five years for every other felony), Oregon (fifteen years, but only for a person with a single non-homicide, non-firearm felony), South Dakota (fifteen years since last discharge), and Utah (seven years after completing a sentence for a felony that is neither violent nor domestic violence).

Two cautions, and they are the whole reason this section exists.

A lapsed state bar is not a restoration of civil rights. Nothing was taken and given back; the prohibition simply ran out. That means it does not engage the exemption clause in § 921(a)(20), and Logan v. United States forecloses the argument that keeping a right is equivalent to regaining one. A person in this position is out from under the state offense and still squarely inside the federal one. This is the single most common way a person forms a sincere and entirely mistaken belief that they are lawful.

Texas belongs to a different category, despite looking like this one. Its five-year mark narrows the bar to everywhere except the person’s residence. It never ends. The Texas profile above sets out why.

Four more states, verified: Oregon, Wisconsin, Vermont, and Kentucky

These four are worth stating individually, because each one’s statute does something with federal relief that almost no chart records — and with the Department of Justice’s § 925(c) process now operating, that is the detail most likely to change someone’s plan.

Vermont is the cleanest. 13 V.S.A. § 4017(c) provides: “This section shall not apply to a person who is exempt from federal firearms restrictions under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c).” A federal grant is dispositive in Vermont by the statute’s own terms. Vermont’s bar is also narrower than most — it reaches only enumerated “violent crimes,” with six express exclusions from the listed-crime set.

Wisconsin does the same at Wis. Stat. § 941.29(5)(b): the section does not apply to a person who “has obtained relief from disabilities under 18 USC 925 (c).” Note the companion clause: the pardon route in the same subsection requires that the person “has been expressly authorized to possess a firearm,” so a bare pardon is not enough in Wisconsin.

Oregon builds the same credit into the scope of its bar. Or. Rev. Stat. § 166.270(4)(b) excludes a person “granted relief from the disability under 18 U.S.C. 925(c) or ORS 166.274,” or whose record has been expunged here or under equivalent laws elsewhere. The alternative Oregon route, an ORS 166.274 circuit-court petition, requires clear and convincing evidence that the petitioner “does not pose a threat to the safety of the public or the petitioner,” and is unavailable for armed person felonies.

Kentucky writes federal relief into the elements of the offense — a person violates Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 527.040 only if he has not “been granted a full pardon by the Governor or by the President of the United States” and has not “been granted relief by the United States Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended.” The reference to the Secretary of the Treasury is historical; the relief function moved to the Department of Justice with ATF in 2003, and whether a Kentucky court reads the clause functionally is a live question worth resolving before, not after.

Kentucky also carries the sharpest warning in the fifty states. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 196.045(3) defines the civil rights the Department of Corrections restores — the vote, jury service, professional licensure, elective office — and then says: “It does not include the right to bear arms.” A Kentucky restoration of civil rights is, on its face, a restoration that excludes firearms. Whether that is enough to trigger the unless-clause of § 921(a)(20) is a federal question; the safe assumption is that it is.

The certificate is the document that matters, not the statute

Rule 2 above states the principle. Here is why it is worth a second pass: in several states, the firearms restriction is not in the possession statute at all. It is in the piece of paper you were handed.

Minnesota requires it by law. Minn. Stat. § 609.165 restores a discharged person “to all civil rights and to full citizenship, the same as if such conviction had not taken place” — and then directs that “[t]he order of discharge must provide that a person who has been convicted of a crime of violence . . . is not entitled to ship, transport, possess, or receive a firearm or ammunition for the remainder of the person’s lifetime.” The statute reads as full restoration; the order the person actually receives says the opposite.

Wisconsin requires the agency to “list in the person’s certificate rights which have been restored and which have not been restored” — Wis. Stat. § 304.078. Which means the certificate can carve firearms out, and whether it did is a question about your document, not about Wisconsin law generally.

Nebraska restores civil rights through a Board of Pardons “warrant of discharge,” and Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-112 restores only “such civil rights and privileges as enumerated or limited by the Board.” Again: the instrument controls.

Iowa goes further and withholds firearm rights permanently for a defined class. Iowa Code § 914.7 provides that a person convicted of “a forcible felony, a felony violation of chapter 124 involving a firearm, or a felony violation of chapter 724” does not have citizenship rights restored “to the extent of allowing the person to receive, transport, or possess firearms.”

New York carves firearms out of its certificates of relief: a certificate under N.Y. Correct. Law § 701 does not prevent forfeiture of a firearms license where the conviction was a class A-I felony or a violent felony offense, and such a conviction “shall impose a disability to apply for or receive” one.

The practical instruction is short. Find the actual order, certificate, or pardon. Read every sentence of it, including the ones that look like boilerplate. Under Caron v. United States, one clause restricting one category of firearm is enough to leave the federal bar fully in place — and the clause is far more often in the document than in the code.

When your state’s statute is silent about federal convictions

A distinct problem, and one worth naming because it produces a specific kind of bad advice.

Some state possession statutes name federal convictions expressly — Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia all do, in one form or another. Others reach them plainly without the word “federal”: statutes barring a person convicted “in this state or elsewhere,” or “in any court,” or “in any other jurisdiction.”

And some say nothing at all, or reach other jurisdictions only through a substantial-similarity test that a court would have to apply to your particular offense. Indiana’s serious-violent-felon statute enumerates thirty-two Indiana Code sections and stops. Kansas asks whether the out-of-state offense is “substantially the same” as a Kansas felony. Utah’s offense and definitional sections are silent, and reach other jurisdictions only by implication from the exceptions section.

Silence is not permission. It means the answer to “does my state bar me because of a federal conviction” is a research question in that state, with case law rather than statutory text supplying the answer — and it means anyone who tells you confidently one way or the other without having done that research is guessing. It also means the reverse can be true: your state may not prohibit you at all while the federal government plainly does, which produces the most dangerous version of this mistake, because everything local you check comes back clean.

What to check in your own state

Because only a handful of states are profiled in detail above, here is the diagnostic to run on any state. It is the same sequence a lawyer runs.

1. Find the state’s possession statute — the provision making possession by a person with a conviction an offense — and read its exceptions. That is where a restoration or expungement exception lives if one exists.
2. Find the civil-rights statute. Which rights does conviction suspend? Do the vote, office-holding, and jury service all go, or only some? Logan makes this decisive: rights never lost cannot be restored.
3. Determine the mechanism and the trigger. Automatic on discharge? After a waiting period? On petition? Only by clemency? What starts the clock — release from confinement, end of supervision, payment of restitution, or all of them?
4. Look for offense carve-outs. Nearly every state excludes some class — violent offenses, drug offenses, firearms offenses, sex offenses — from the ordinary route and sends them somewhere harder or nowhere at all.
5. Then ask the Caron question, which is the one that decides the federal outcome: after all of that, does any provision of state law still restrict this person’s possession of any firearm? If yes, the conviction still counts federally.
6. Confirm the currency of every provision. These statutes are amended often; Virginia’s carries a 2026 effective date.
7. Get the paper. Whatever the mechanism produced — an order, a certificate, a discharge — read the document itself. Its terms are what Caron looks to.

If the answer to step 5 is yes, or if the conviction is federal, the state route is closed and the question becomes federal.

In a petition state, the record is the case

Where a state requires an affirmative filing, the statute usually gives the judge a standard and very little else, and the outcome turns on what the petitioner puts in front of the court. The verified standards are worth reading side by side, because they are more demanding than the shorthand suggests.

Ohio — relief from disability under Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2923.14, in the court of common pleas for the county of residence. The statute requires full discharge, a law-abiding life, and that “[t]he applicant is not otherwise prohibited by law from acquiring, having, or using firearms.” A grant “restores the applicant to all civil firearm rights to the full extent enjoyed by any citizen.” Note the built-in federal check in the third element.

Michigan — for a “specified felony,” the circuit court must find, by clear and convincing evidence, that five years have run since fines, custody, and supervision were completed, and that “[t]he individual’s record and reputation are such that the individual is not likely to act in a manner dangerous to the safety of other individuals.” Mich. Comp. Laws § 28.424. One petition per twelve-month period. A denied petition is not merely a setback; it is a year.

Washington — Wash. Rev. Code § 9.41.041 requires five clean years for a felony and three for the qualifying non-felonies, and forecloses relief entirely for “[a] felony sex offense; a class A felony; or a felony offense with a maximum sentence of at least 20 years.” The absolute bars do the most work here: a substantial number of petitioners are ineligible before the discretionary analysis begins.

Oregon — an ORS 166.274 petition requires clear and convincing evidence that “the petitioner does not pose a threat to the safety of the public or the petitioner.” The statute excludes anyone convicted of a person felony involving a firearm or deadly weapon, anyone convicted of an ORS 137.700 offense, and anyone currently serving or recently discharged from a felony sentence.

West Virginia — W. Va. Code § 61-7-7(f) requires clear and convincing evidence that the person “is competent and capable of exercising the responsibility concomitant with the possession of a firearm,” and directs that the order issue only “if such possession would not violate any federal law.” Subsection (f) is unavailable to anyone within the enhanced subsection (b) tier — felony crimes of violence, felony sex offenses, and certain Schedule I, II, and III drug felonies.

North Carolina — N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.4 is the most patient statute in the country. Civil rights must have been restored under Chapter 13 “for a period of at least 20 years,” the petitioner must have a single non-violent felony (multiple convictions consolidated for sentencing count as one), and must have lived in North Carolina for a year. For an out-of-state or federal conviction, the statute additionally requires that “the person’s civil rights, including the right to possess a firearm, have been restored, pursuant to the law of the jurisdiction where the conviction occurred.”

Pennsylvania — a 18 Pa.C.S. § 6105(d) petition, on which relief is mandatory rather than discretionary if one of three conditions is met: the conviction was vacated, the Governor granted a full pardon, or federal relief issued and ten non-custodial years have elapsed. This is the rare state where the right showing produces a “shall grant.”

Three things carry a discretionary petition, and none of them is the passage of time by itself: a complete and unflattering account of the underlying offense told by the petitioner rather than extracted by the prosecutor; documented stability across the whole intervening period, not just the recent part; and a concrete, non-recreational reason for wanting the right back. Judges deciding these petitions are being asked to accept personal risk on a stranger’s behalf, and the petitions that succeed are the ones that make that decision easy to defend.

Two statutes whose captions mislead

Worth flagging because both appear in secondary charts described by their titles rather than their text.

Kansas. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 21-6304 is captioned “criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.” Its operative text bars possession of any “weapon,” and the statute defines “weapon” to mean “a firearm or a knife,” with “knife” defined as “a dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, straight-edged razor or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character.” A person reading the caption would not know that the statute reaches a pocket knife. The expungement-and-pardon exception in the same section applies to three of the statute’s four tiers and omits the eight-year serious-felony tier.

South Carolina. S.C. Code Ann. § 16-23-500 is captioned as applying to “a person convicted of violent offense.” Its operative threshold is any “crime punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year,” with narrow exclusions for antitrust and business-regulation offenses and for out-of-state misdemeanors punishable by five years or less. It is a general felony bar wearing a violent-offense label. It does contain a genuine restoration clause, and a well-drafted one — the § 921(a)(20) structure, verbatim in substance: no conviction where it has been expunged, set aside, pardoned, or civil rights restored, “unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.”

How state relief interacts with the reopened federal route

Until 2026 this section could not have been written, because the federal route did not function.

For more than thirty years an appropriations rider barred ATF from spending any funds “to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. [§] 925(c)” — the language quoted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Bean, 537 U.S. 71 (2002) — and Bean held that the resulting inaction was not a “denial” a court could review. In March 2025 the Department of Justice withdrew ATF’s delegation, and on August 20, 2026 it published a final rule at 91 Fed. Reg. 54054, effective September 21, 2026, standing the process back up under the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Public applications open November 4, 2026, capped at the first 5,000 applicants.

Three practical points for someone weighing state versus federal.

Federal relief reaches disabilities no state can touch. Section 925(c) covers all nine § 922(g) categories, including a federal conviction, a dishonorable discharge, and a renunciation of citizenship — none of which any state can address.

Federal relief does not restore state rights. The Department states that the program “does not automatically restore state or tribal firearm rights,” and the final rule’s announcement confirms relief “removes only applicable federal firearms disabilities and does not override independent restrictions imposed by state law.” Someone prohibited under both systems needs relief in both.

Some states recognize federal relief. Minnesota’s statute expressly does. Whether a given state does is a question to check rather than assume.

The application, the presumptive disqualifiers, and the timing are at federal firearm rights restoration, and the four routes compared are at gun rights restoration.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The single most common version of this problem we see is someone who did everything right in their state and is still prohibited. They completed the sentence, waited out the period, got the certificate — and either the state kept a firearms provision somewhere else in its code, or the underlying conviction was federal all along and the state relief was never going to reach it. The fix is unglamorous: pull the judgment, identify the convicting court, and read the state’s whole scheme rather than the certificate. It costs a few hours and it is the difference between lawful possession and a federal felony.

A note on domestic-violence convictions

State restoration works differently for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, because § 921(a)(33)(B)(ii) has its own exemption clause with an additional condition: restoration of civil rights counts “if the law of the applicable jurisdiction provides for the loss of civil rights under such an offense.” Most states do not strip civil rights for a misdemeanor — so for most people the restoration route is unavailable and expungement, set-aside, or pardon is the only path.

There is also a self-executing federal exit that exists nowhere else: § 921(a)(33)(C) restores rights automatically five years after a single dating-partner misdemeanor domestic-violence conviction, on conditions, and expressly excludes spouses, co-parents, and cohabitants. See misdemeanor domestic violence gun rights restoration.

If you are not sure whether you are prohibited at all

Start with what the federal bar actually covers — including ammunition, constructive possession, and the antique-firearm exception — at can a felon own a gun. If you want to understand how state relief compares to the federal forms of relief people most often confuse it with, see pardon vs expungement and what a pardon does not do.

There is also a route this page does not cover, and it is the better one whenever it is available: attacking the conviction itself rather than its consequences. A conviction that is vacated is not a conviction for § 922(g)(1) purposes at all, and no restoration analysis is needed. For someone still in custody or within the limitations period, that is a federal § 2255 motion; for someone whose sentence is fully served and who therefore cannot use § 2255, it is a writ of coram nobis — the remedy specifically designed for a person suffering the collateral consequences of a conviction after custody has ended, which describes most people reading this page. Pennsylvania’s restoration statute makes the point from the other direction: a vacated conviction is one of the three grounds on which a Pennsylvania court “shall grant” relief.

Related reading on federal versus state relief

The Office of the Pardon Attorney makes this page’s central point in its own FAQ, and it is worth quoting because it comes from the agency that administers the federal relief: a person whose federal firearm rights have been restored, “either through pardon or under the § 925(c) process, should consult with their state, territorial, or tribal authorities to learn more about whether he can possess firearms under the laws where he lives.” Federal relief answers the federal question and stops there.

OPA also confirms the mirror image, which is the point Beecham decides: “Some, but not all, states have instituted procedures for restoring to their citizens certain basic civil rights, such as the rights to vote, hold office, or sit on a jury, even if the disqualifying felony conviction was incurred in federal court.” A state can restore state civil rights after a federal conviction. It cannot restore federal firearm rights.

For the jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction detail, see firearm rights restoration by state. For the federal route, federal firearm rights restoration; for the threshold question, can a felon own a gun; for the overview of all four routes, gun rights restoration. The executive alternatives are at pardons lawyer and clemency lawyers, and a firearm rights restoration attorney can run the diagnostic above against your actual judgment.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national federal practice on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida. She has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record, and is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for white-collar litigation.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook and four other books on the federal system and serves as Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center. Legal work on any matter is handled by the firm’s attorneys.

Where a state’s own scheme controls, local counsel in that state is often the right answer, and we will say so. Where the conviction is federal — or where the question is whether state relief actually cleared the federal bar — that is a federal analysis, and it is what this firm does.

Offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, serving clients nationwide. No outcome can be promised; this page is general information rather than legal advice, and it does not attempt to state the law of any state not named above.

Schedule a consultation

To find out whether your state relief actually lifted the federal bar — or whether the federal route is the only one available to you — schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100.

Frequently Asked Questions About State Gun Rights Restoration

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026