Armed Again will hold a one-day public education session on federal firearm rights restoration on Saturday, October 10, 2026, in Troy, Michigan, ahead of the November 4 opening of the first application window under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c). The Department of Justice has limited that initial public window to 5,000 applications nationwide. The session explains the evidentiary file the Office of the Pardon Attorney will require once the portal opens, including clinical risk assessments, recovery documentation, and the mechanics of the federal application.
The October session follows the August 17, 2026, final rule signed by Attorney General Todd Blanche, which rebuilt a restoration process dormant for more than 30 years. Section 925(c) has long allowed a person prohibited from possessing firearms to petition the Attorney General for relief. Beginning in 1992, Congress stopped funding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives review of those applications. The statute remained on the books, but courts held they could not compel decisions on files the agency was barred from processing. The 2026 rule places administration inside the Department of Justice through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. The U.S. Pardon Attorney has estimated that 30 million Americans live with a federal firearm prohibition.
Armed Again, powered by the Law Offices of Barton Morris, has described the public application as not yet open and opening in stages. Public materials state that the first window accepts 5,000 applicants nationwide and that, once an application is started, the Department of Justice allows 30 days to finish. Restoration Day falls 24 days before that November 4 date, an interval identified for assembling court records, fingerprinting, character references, and clinical reports before the filing clock starts.
Eligibility to apply is not the same as a likelihood of relief. Anyone prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) may apply, including people prohibited by a felony conviction, unlawful drug use, certain mental-health adjudications, or a domestic-violence conviction or protective order. Each applicant must show, with documents and references, that the applicant is not likely to be a danger to public safety and that relief would not be contrary to the public interest. Federal relief does not remove separate state restrictions.
The rule also publishes presumptive disqualifiers covering current incarceration, pending sentencing, diversion, fugitive status, and ongoing unlawful controlled-substance use, with marijuana-only use expressly excluded, along with specified violent, trafficking, and more recent felony or misdemeanor offenses. Applicants must disclose those categories even when a conviction was expunged, pardoned, or set aside.
The Troy program runs from doors at 9:30 a.m. through approximately 4:30 p.m. Dr. Atara Abramsky, a forensic psychiatry specialist, is scheduled to address the public-safety question a psychiatric risk assessment is meant to answer with clinical evidence. Bruce Goldberg, a substance abuse counselor, is scheduled to explain how a clinical assessment documents recovery when drugs or alcohol appear in a record. Barton Morris, Principal Attorney and Founder, is scheduled to address federal pardon petitions and to walk through the application portal before the public window opens.
Attendance does not produce a case-specific legal determination and does not create an attorney-client relationship. A formal determination requires review of the certified record, charging documents, and sentencing transcripts.
“Thirty days after a file is started is not a realistic period in which to reconstruct decades-old court records, complete fingerprinting, and gather character references,” said Barton Morris, Principal Attorney and Founder of Armed Again. “The work that determines whether an application is complete has to happen before the portal opens, because a missing attachment or a technical error can end the filing in a window capped at 5,000 applications.”
Morris said the legal standard is documentary rather than narrative. “Relief under section 925(c) requires proof that the applicant is not likely to be a danger to public safety and that granting relief would not be contrary to the public interest,” Morris said. “A signature on a form does not meet that standard.”
The firm distinguishes the federal petition from state restoration. State relief restores rights under state law only, and a federal prohibition can still block possession after a state remedy. A presidential pardon of a federal conviction is a separate, discretionary process under 28 CFR Part 1.
Barton Morris has more than 25 years of criminal defense experience, including federal cases in the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, and has been recognized by Super Lawyers and DBusiness Magazine.
Armed Again is a firearm-rights restoration practice powered by the Law Offices of Barton Morris in Troy, Michigan, with a federal section 925(c) practice described as available nationwide. The practice concentrates on federal firearm rights restoration, state restoration, federal pardon applications, and criminal-record analysis, and on applications that document rehabilitation against the public-safety and public-interest standard in the Department of Justice rule.
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For more information about Armed Again, contact the company here:
Armed Again
Barton Morris
(866) 202-9097
info@armedagain.com
801 West Big Beaver Road, Suite 600, Troy, MI 48084.
