It was tested, not trusted
The mark says nothing about who made the gun, what it cost, or who recommends it. It records one thing: it was put under more strain than it will ever meet again, and it held.
18 U.S.C. § 925(c) · reopened September 2026
Your record is not the end of the story.
For more than thirty years the federal process for restoring firearm rights sat funded shut. On September 21, 2026 it opened again — and it opens in stages, with a hard cap on how many people get in. We help the people who qualify build the file, cover the cost, and file on time.
I need my rights back
Answer five questions and find out whether this program can help you — before you spend a dollar or a day on it.
Start the screener →
I want to fund this
Most people who qualify are stopped by the cost of assembling the file, not by the law. That part is solvable with money.
See what a gift covers →The name
What a proof mark is
It is the oldest certification in the gun trade, and the only one that has to be earned rather than claimed. We took the name on purpose.
Before a firearm can be sold in Britain it goes to a proof house — an independent authority, not the maker. There a technician loads it with a deliberately overpowered cartridge, far beyond anything it will meet in normal use, points it into an armored chamber, and fires.
If the gun comes apart, that is the answer. If it holds, a mark is struck into the steel.
London and Birmingham have run proof houses on this principle for close to four hundred years, and most of Europe requires the same. A gun without the mark cannot lawfully be sold — however good it looks, and whoever vouches for it.
WHAT IT MEANS
WHAT IT MEANS
An outsider decides
The maker does not stamp his own work. The judgment belongs to an authority with no stake in the sale — which is exactly what makes the mark worth anything.
WHAT IT MEANS
It is permanent
Struck into the metal, not printed on a label. It travels with the gun through every owner it will ever have. It does not expire, and it is not revoked because someone changed their mind.
A proof mark says a thing was tested
and found sound.
We think a person can earn the same.
Who this is for
Nine ways a person becomes prohibited. Most are not what you picture.
Federal law lists the categories at 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Only one of them involves anything a person did with a gun. The rest are status and history — and the first one is so broad that it swallows almost everyone in this program.
Marked in olive are the categories § 925(c) relief realistically reaches.
- Convicted of a crime punishable by more than a yearThe broad one. It does not matter whether you served a day, whether the offense involved violence, or whether it happened in 1994. A paper felony from decades ago prohibits you for life.
- Misdemeanor crime of domestic violenceThe only misdemeanor that carries a lifetime federal firearms bar.
- Adjudicated mentally defective, or committedThe statute’s language, not ours. Most people here must exhaust a state relief program first.
- Discharged under dishonorable conditionsA single administrative characterization, decades old, that follows a veteran for life.
- Unlawful user of a controlled substanceA status, not a conviction. The restoration rule excludes marijuana.
- Subject to a qualifying restraining orderLifts when the order does.
- Fugitive from justiceResolve the underlying matter and the category no longer applies.
- Renounced United States citizenshipVanishingly rare.
- Unlawfully present in the United StatesNot a category this program serves.
The part people miss
A prohibition does not expire.
There is no waiting period that ends it, no box you age out of, and no clerk who removes it when the sentence closes. Absent relief, a conviction from 1994 prohibits a person in 2026 exactly as much as it did the day it was entered. That is what § 925(c) exists to change, and it is the only thing that does.
What it costs
It is not really about hunting
People assume a firearms prohibition costs someone a hobby. In practice it reaches into work, family, and where a person is allowed to live.
Work
Armored transport, licensed security, many corrections and law-enforcement adjacent roles, and a range of licensed trades screen for federal firearms eligibility. A prohibition closes those doors regardless of skill or references.
The house you live in
Constructive possession means a firearm in a shared home can put a prohibited person at legal risk. Families split households, or give up lawful firearms, over it.
Passing something down
A father’s shotgun cannot be inherited. It goes to a sibling, gets sold, or sits with a third party — a small thing that lands hard.
Standing
Every background check is a reminder that the record is still operating, years after everyone else considers the matter closed. Relief is the only official answer that says otherwise.
The window
It opens in stages, and it closes
The Department of Justice is not taking everyone at once. The first public window is capped at 5,000 applications. Being ready before it opens is most of the battle.
SEP 21 · 2026
Rule takes effect
The final rule published August 20 becomes operative, reviving § 925(c) relief through the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
SEP 25 · 2026
Invited candidates
The application opens to invited candidates only. No public filing yet.
NOV 4 · 2026
Public opens · first 5,000
The application opens to the public, capped at the first 5,000 candidates. No fee in this window.
JAN 4 · 2027
500 more · fee begins
An additional 500 candidates may apply, and the $30 application fee begins. The fee can be waived or reduced.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Firearm Rights Restoration (justice.gov/ffrr)
The process DOJ built
What actually happens to an application
The final rule moved this work to the Office of the Pardon Attorney and wrote a real procedure around it — the first one that has existed in practice since Congress defunded the old ATF process in 1992.
The standard you have to meet
An applicant must show, to the Attorney General’s satisfaction, that their circumstances, record, reputation, and conduct since the offense establish they are not likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety, and that granting relief would not be contrary to the public interest.
18 U.S.C. § 925(c), as implemented by the final rule
Two things follow from that sentence, and both matter more than most people realize. The burden is entirely on the applicant — nobody at the Department builds your case for you. And relief stays discretionary: clearing every technical hurdle earns a decision, not a grant. What moves a file is evidence of the life someone has actually lived since, assembled and presented so a reviewer can see it without hunting.
30
Days to cure a defective file
If the Department finds the application incomplete, the clock is short and it runs whether or not you have a lawyer, whether or not the missing record is one a clerk’s office is slow to produce. Files that were built properly the first time do not meet this deadline in a panic.
How it works
Four steps, in order
STEP 01
We screen you honestly
Not everyone is a fit, and the rule carries presumptive disqualifiers that can be permanent or time-limited. We tell you where you stand before you invest anything. If the answer is "not yet," we tell you when to come back.
STEP 02
We build the file
Certified dispositions, sentencing and discharge records, proof that supervision ended, electronic fingerprints, and character references. This is the part that stops most people, and it is the part we do.
STEP 03
We fund it and counsel files it
We pay the costs and we retain and coordinate counsel. The attorney is yours; the bill is ours. Your application goes in through the Office of the Pardon Attorney on Form 1123-0017.
STEP 04
We stay with it
The Department can come back with questions, and a thin answer at that stage can sink an otherwise strong file. We keep the record together and respond until there is a decision.
Plainly
What we are, and what we are not
WE DO
Pay for it
Records, fingerprints, the federal fee, and counsel's time. A person who qualifies should not lose their shot because of what the paperwork costs.
WE DO
Build the record
We assemble the file to the standard the Department expects, and we retain and coordinate the attorney who files it.
WE DO NOT
Act as your lawyer
Operation Proof Mark is not a law firm and does not represent you. Nothing here is legal advice, and the screener is orientation, not a determination. Counsel we retain represents you, not us.
On what this is not
Relief under § 925(c) is a finding about who you are now. It is not an expungement, it does not seal or erase a conviction, and it does not undo a sentence. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
The cost problem
The fee is $30. The file is not.
The federal fee is small and can be waived. What actually stops people is everything around it — certified records from three different clerks' offices, fingerprints, references who will put their name to a letter, and an attorney who knows what a strong § 925(c) file looks like. That is a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and weeks of work, and it lands on people who are least able to carry it.
What that means
A capped window rewards whoever is ready
Five thousand slots, nationwide, in the first public round. The people who get in will be the ones whose files were built before November 4 — which in practice means the ones who had help. Funding this work is how someone who cannot afford a lawyer ends up in that five thousand.
