Once a North Carolina felon is fully released from probation, parole, and the Department of Correction, can he legally possess a handgun outside his home or business right away, and does a Governor's Pardon of Forgiveness give him his full firearms rights back?

Plain-English summary

The Governor's deputy legal counsel asked the AG two questions about the Felony Firearms Act that were coming up routinely in pardon and restoration-of-rights matters. Could a convicted felon, just released from all DOC custody and supervision, carry a firearm outside his home or business immediately? And did a Governor's Pardon of Forgiveness restore the felon's firearms rights?

Deputy AG William Melvin and Associate Attorney Jane Gray, for AG Edmisten, said no to both.

The five-year ban outside home and business. G.S. § 14-415.1 then prohibited a convicted felon from possessing, owning, or purchasing a firearm with a barrel length under 18 inches or overall length under 26 inches (i.e., a handgun), or any weapon of mass death and destruction as defined in § 14-288.8(c), for five years. The five-year clock ran from the latest of:
- the date of conviction,
- unconditional discharge from a correctional institution, or
- termination of a suspended sentence, probation, or parole.

So a felon released from supervision today could not possess a handgun outside his home or business for five years from that release. The statute carved out an exception: possession within the felon's own home or his lawful place of business was permitted during the five-year period. But anywhere else (in a car, on the street, at a friend's house), possession was prohibited.

Pardon of Forgiveness has no effect on the Felony Firearms Act. Before October 1, 1975, the statute had a different structure. G.S. § 14-415.2 had created an exemption from the Felony Firearms Act for any person whose citizenship was restored under Chapter 13 (which lists four routes: unconditional discharge, unconditional pardon, satisfaction of conditional pardon conditions, or federal-jurisdiction discharge or pardon). The 1974 NC Supreme Court decision in State v. Currie had applied that exemption to overturn a felony-firearm conviction for a person whose citizenship had been restored.

But the 1975 General Assembly repealed § 14-415.2 effective October 1, 1975 (1975 Sess. Laws ch. 870, § 3). After the repeal, restoration of citizenship rights no longer carries an exemption from the Felony Firearms Act. A Pardon of Forgiveness restores citizenship rights (right to vote, hold office, serve on juries), but the felon remains subject to § 14-415.1's five-year firearm restriction.

The AG was clarifying a confusion that had naturally arisen from the 1975 repeal. A criminal defense attorney or pardon advocate might have read § 13-1's restoration mechanisms as still triggering a § 14-415.2 exemption. The exemption no longer existed. The mismatch between the Pardon of Forgiveness's restoration of "citizenship rights" generally and its non-effect on the specific firearms restriction was a deliberate legislative choice.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1981. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here. The Felony Firearms Act has been substantially amended since 1981. The 2004 amendments made the firearm prohibition permanent for most felons (no longer a five-year sunset), eliminated the home/business exception in most cases, and broadened the covered firearms. Britt v. State, 363 N.C. 546 (2009), held the post-2004 statute unconstitutional as applied to a particular nonviolent felon under the NC Constitution's right-to-bear-arms provision. Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)) imposes a separate, generally permanent firearm prohibition on felons. Anyone with a current question about a felon's firearm rights in NC must read the current G.S. § 14-415.1, the Britt line of cases, the federal felon-in-possession statute, and applicable restoration procedures.

Background and statutory framework

NC's Felony Firearms Act took its 1981 form through a series of amendments going back to the 1970s. The five-year prohibition with the home/business carve-out reflected a particular legislative compromise: serious enough that felons could not casually own guns, narrow enough that a fully-released felon could keep a firearm at home for self-defense and at his place of business for the same reason. The five-year period was chosen as a transition window during which the recently-released felon's stability could be assessed before unrestricted access resumed.

The § 14-415.2 exemption for restored-citizenship felons existed because NC has long treated restoration of citizenship as a kind of fresh start. Once a felon's citizenship was restored, he could vote, hold office, and exercise other civil rights. The 1971 enactment of § 14-415.2 extended that fresh start to firearm rights too: the restored felon was treated, for firearm-law purposes, as if he had never been convicted.

The 1975 repeal of § 14-415.2 broke that linkage. The legislative judgment, made in the aftermath of rising violent crime in the early 1970s, was that even fully-restored citizens with prior felony convictions should bear the firearm restriction. The general restoration of citizenship still mattered for voting, jury service, and office-holding, but firearms were carved out and made subject to the separate Felony Firearms Act timeline.

State v. Currie's 1974 application of § 14-415.2 became a fossil after the 1975 repeal. The case reflected the law as it was when decided, but the statutory ground had been pulled out. The 1981 AG opinion's role was to confirm that Currie no longer governed, since its statutory basis was gone.

Common questions

Could the felon possess a long gun (rifle or shotgun)?

In 1981, the Felony Firearms Act's possession ban covered handguns (barrel < 18 inches or overall < 26 inches) and weapons of mass death and destruction. Standard rifles and shotguns with longer barrels were outside the ban. The felon could possess them outside his home or business even during the five-year period, subject to other applicable law.

What about purchase rather than possession?

The 1981 statute prohibited purchasing, owning, or possessing the covered firearms. So a felon could not buy a handgun for delivery to his home; the purchase itself was the prohibited act. The home/business exception applied to possession at those locations of firearms acquired by some other route (inheritance, pre-conviction ownership stored at home).

Did this opinion address Second Amendment claims?

No. The 1981 opinion was issued before the U.S. Supreme Court's modern Second Amendment cases (District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022)). The constitutional landscape for felon-firearm restrictions has shifted substantially since 1981, and the federal Heller dicta carved out "longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons" as presumptively lawful. NC's state constitutional doctrine has its own line through Britt and later cases.

What about a federal felony conviction?

The Felony Firearms Act applied to NC felony convictions. Federal felony convictions had a separate analysis under both NC and federal law, with the federal felon-in-possession statute (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)) as the federal layer. The 1981 AG opinion addressed only the state statute.

Source

• Landing page: https://ncdoj.gov/opinions/weapons-felony-firearms-act/

Citations

• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.1
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-415.2 (repealed 1975)
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.8(c)
• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 13-1
• 1975 N.C. Sess. Laws ch. 870, § 3
• State v. Currie, 284 N.C. 562, 202 S.E.2d 153 (1974)

Original opinion text

Requested By:

Charles L. White
Deputy Legal Counsel to the Governor

Questions:

• May a convicted felon possess a firearm under North Carolina law outside of his home or business as soon as he is unconditionally released from the Department of Correction's custody and supervision?
• What effect, if any, would a Pardon of Forgiveness have on a convicted felon's right to possess a firearm under State and Federal law?

Conclusions:

• No.
• None.

(1) The decision of State v. Currie, 284 N.C. 562, 202 S.E. 2d 153 (1974), which held that the Felony Firearms Act did not apply to a convicted felon who had been restored to citizenship under G.S. 13-1, was based on the exemption provided in G.S. 14-415.2. G.S. 14-415.2 provided that any person whose citizenship was restored under the provisions of Chapter 13 of the General Statutes, or any comparable State or federal statute, was thereafter exempt from the provisions of

G.S. 14-415.1. G.S. 13-1 lists four conditions under which citizenship rights can be restored to a convicted criminal, including: unconditional discharge from the Department of Correction of an inmate, parolee or probationer; unconditional pardon; satisfaction by the offender of all conditions of a conditional pardon; or unconditional discharge by the agency having jurisdiction over a federal law offender, his unconditional pardon or the satisfaction by him of a conditional pardon. G.S. 14-415.2 was repealed by Session Laws 1975, c. 870, s. 3, effective October 1, 1975.

As now written, G.S. 14-415(a) prohibits a convicted felon from possessing, owing, or purchasing a firearm with a barrel length of less than 18 inches or an overall length of less than 26 inches, or any weapon of mass death and destruction as defined in G.S. 14-288.8(c), within five years from the date of conviction, unconditional discharge from a correctional institution, or termination of a suspended sentence, probation, or parole upon such conviction, whichever is later. (Emphasis added.) The statute does not, however, prohibit a convicted felon from possessing a firearm within his own home or on his lawful place of business within that five year period.

(2) Similarly, a Pardon of Forgiveness does not exempt a convicted felon from the provisions of

G.S. 14-415.1. A Pardon of Forgiveness would restore citizenship rights as per G.S. 13-1, but restoration of citizenship rights does not render G.S. 14-415.1 inapplicable to the pardoned offender as explained previously.

Rufus L. Edmisten
Attorney General

William W. Melvin, Deputy Attorney General

Jane P. Gray
Associate Attorney