Colorado firearm-rights law is its own layer of the analysis. Colorado firearm dispossession is tied to specified violent, sexual, and other listed offenses rather than every felony. In 2025, motor-vehicle theft was added as a prohibiting category, with a specific petition route after ten years from sentence completion.
Colorado firearm-rights law: what changed
HB1171 (2025) added motor-vehicle theft to Colorado’s prohibited-person statute and allows a person in that category to petition for a court order determining lawful firearm possession after ten years have passed since sentence completion.
The federal § 925(c) program is active again.
DOJ finalized its Federal Firearm Rights Restoration rule on August 17, 2026 and is administering applications through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. DOJ announced that the first 5,000 public applicants may apply beginning November 4, 2026. A federal grant removes only the federal disability covered by that relief; independent state restrictions still require separate analysis.
How gun-rights restoration works in Colorado
Pardon remains central for many listed convictions; a 2025 law created a ten-year judicial-relief route for the new motor-vehicle-theft category. A responsible review should start with the exact statute of conviction, the sentence that was imposed, when every sentence requirement ended, and any later criminal history.
Colorado law and the federal § 925(c) process
The federal process under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c) can address a federal firearm prohibition, but the effect of federal relief under Colorado law is jurisdiction-specific. A person can therefore have a federal question, a state question, or both. Both layers should be resolved before any firearm is possessed, purchased, received, transported, or handled.
A federal § 925(c) grant does not by itself establish that every Colorado firearm restriction has been removed. State law and any independent state disability must be checked separately.
State-law reference point
A commonly cited Colorado provision in this area is Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-12-108. Statutes, cases, definitions, and restoration procedures change, so the current official law and the applicant’s complete record should be checked before relying on a general summary.
What can change the answer?
A pardon, civil-rights restoration, judicial firearm order, passage of a statutory waiting period, federal § 925(c) relief where state law recognizes it, or another qualifying firearm-rights order may alter the analysis depending on Colorado law. The legal effect of the actual signed order matters more than the label someone uses for it.
What to bring to a Colorado rights-restoration review
- Charging document and final judgment or disposition
- Sentencing order and proof of sentence completion
- Current state and federal criminal-history records
- Any pardon, expungement, set-aside, civil-rights restoration, federal restoration, or prior firearm-rights order
- Current state of residence and prior states of residence