Newly sworn-in Attorney General Todd Blanche has launched a new initiative to give convicted felons back their right to own guns.
The Department of Justice announced Monday that people whose felony convictions automatically barred them from owning weapons can now apply to have their right to bear arms reinstated. The DOJ predicted that 330,000 felons will apply.
In a statement, Blanche said, “the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and the federal government should not permanently deprive Americans of a constitutional right without regard to whether they pose a danger to public safety.”
The DOJ said the new initiative to put guns back in the hands of criminals will not extend to undocumented immigrants, registered sex offenders, or those convicted of violent crimes.
Those with criminal records have typically been able to reclaim their right to own a gun if they obtained a pardon, but the pardon division within the DOJ has seen chaos in the Trump administration.
The Justice Department fired its previous pardon attorney, Elizabeth Oyer, last year, after she objected to restoring gun rights to Trumpy actor Mel Gibson, who lost his gun rights as a result of a 2011 domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.
“This is dangerous. This isn’t political—this is a safety issue,” she told The New York Times at the time, adding, “Giving guns back to domestic abusers is a serious matter that, in my view, is not something that I could recommend lightly, because there are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms.”
She was replaced with right-wing prosecutor Edward Martin, who defended the Jan. 6 rioters. Martin refers to himself as “Eagle Ed.”
At the start of the second Trump administration, he was essentially ousted from his appointment to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. as it became clear he would not have the votes in the Senate to be confirmed.
He was prominently involved in Trump’s crazed “Stop the Steal” movement, in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and he served on the board of the Patriot Freedom Project, which raised money to support defendants from the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt and their families.
Martin hailed the new push to restore gun rights to felons, saying in a statement that he is “proud to serve and defend our great Second Amendment.”
“President Trump keeps making history—this time by his unprecedented restoration of firearms rights to millions of Americans,” his statement continued.
