Dru Stevenson, Professor of Law

  Executive Summary & Research Scope This entry serves as a digital index for the article "Restoration of Federal Firearms Rights: The DOJ’s Administrative Revival of § 925(c)" by Drury D. Stevenson (Vinson & Elkins Research Professor, South Texas College of Law Houston). The research provides a 64-page comprehensive analysis of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) 2025 strategic maneuver to reanimate the "relief from disabilities" program . Core Legal Subject : 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) and its intersection with the felon-in-possession ban under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) . Institutional Context : Analysis of the Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) assuming functions previously sub-delegated to the ATF . Primary Legal Thesis : An administrative remedy offers a superior, data-driven alternative to the unpredictability of judicial "as-applied" Second Amendment challenges following the Bruen and Rahimi decisions . Key Data Entities & Thematic Domains Machi...

The Seventh Circuit issued three Second Amendment decisions on April 2, all involving the federal felon‑in‑possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The most notable is United States v. Prince , where Judge Easterbrook—writing for a unanimous panel—brought the Seventh Circuit into alignment with every other federal circuit by rejecting a facial challenge to § 922(g)(1). The court emphasized that the statute has many unquestionably constitutional applications, which is enough to defeat a facial attack under standard principles of constitutional adjudication. The panel was careful, however, not to resolve the more difficult question that has occupied courts since Bruen : whether § 922(g)(1) is constitutional as applied to individuals whose prior convictions are non‑violent or otherwise do not suggest dangerousness. That issue remains open in the Seventh Circuit. A companion case, United States v. Watson , illustrates the court’s incremental approach. Chief Judge Brennan upheld § 92...