Give Stewart her guns and Bannon his vote: The case for federal expungement

The Justice Department’s new rule reviving a process for restoring certain rights to people with nonviolent felony convictions rightly recognizes that, instead of lifetime scarlet letters, we must narrowly tailor the collateral consequences of a conviction. Starting Monday, Americans with a nonviolent federal conviction can avail themselves of this process. Although the Second Amendment is at issue, the principle it illustrates is far broader: People who have served their time in prison and demonstrated years of law-abiding conduct deserve a real path back to full citizenship. To fully deliver on this principle, legislation going well beyond this rule change will be necessary.