How Do Civil Rights and Gun Rights Differ in Arizona?

You finished your sentence years ago and paid what you owed. Now you want to vote, answer a jury summons without fear, and keep a hunting rifle in the house, and nobody has told you whether those rights came back together or one at a time. The confusion is common, and the answer surprises most people.

We handle Arizona record relief every day, and rights restoration filings cross our desks every week. AZ Record Removal is owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law, and this guide shows where civil rights and gun rights part ways.

What rights do you lose after an Arizona felony conviction?

A felony conviction in Arizona suspends four rights that matter outside prison walls: the right to vote, the right to hold public office, the right to serve on a jury, and the right to own or carry a firearm. The first three are what Arizona calls civil rights. The fourth sits on the same list and then follows its own rules from the day of sentencing forward.

A misdemeanor conviction suspends none of these under Arizona law. The loss attaches to felonies, and it attaches the day the judge enters the judgment of guilt. An undesignated class 6 felony counts as a felony for firearm purposes under A.R.S. § 13-604(B) until a judge designates it a misdemeanor, so an open class 6 takes your gun rights with it. If you are not sure what your record says, search your Arizona record before you plan a filing.

Why does Arizona treat gun rights differently from civil rights?

Because the legislature wrote separate laws for each. Civil rights restoration for a person with more than one felony lives in A.R.S. § 13-908. Firearm restoration lives in A.R.S. § 13-910. The two sections carry different bars and, for some people, opposite outcomes on the same conviction.

The split exists for a public safety reason. Lawmakers were willing to hand voting and jury service back to almost everyone who finished a sentence. They were not willing to do the same with firearms after a violent crime. Federal law adds its own layer on firearms, and that layer deserves its own post. The table below compares the two paths as the law stands in 2026.

Question	Civil rights (vote, jury, office)	Gun rights
Automatic after a first felony?	Yes, under A.R.S. § 13-907, if victim restitution is paid	Yes since 2022, unless the offense was dangerous or serious
Path with a prior felony	Application under A.R.S. § 13-908	Application under A.R.S. § 13-910
Waiting period	None after final discharge	None, except after a serious offense
Permanent bar	None	Dangerous offense
Who decides a contested application	The judge	The judge

Do your civil rights come back automatically in Arizona?

After a first felony, yes. Under A.R.S. § 13-907, a person who has never been convicted of another felony gets civil rights restored automatically on completion of probation or on absolute discharge from prison, as long as every dollar of victim restitution is paid. No application. No hearing. The restoration happens by operation of law.

Two things break the automatic path. A prior felony conviction, from Arizona or anywhere else, takes you out of A.R.S. § 13-907. Unpaid victim restitution does the same. Either one moves you to an application under A.R.S. § 13-908, covered below. The law conditions the automatic path on victim restitution, not on court fines and fees, though an unpaid balance still counts against you on sealing and on any filing a judge reads later.

Do your gun rights come back automatically too?

Sometimes, and only since 2022. HB 2119 folded firearm rights into the automatic restoration under A.R.S. § 13-907 for a first felony. If your single felony was neither a dangerous offense nor a serious offense, and you finished probation or received an absolute discharge with restitution paid, your right to possess a firearm came back with your other rights.

Subsection C of A.R.S. § 13-907 draws the line. A person convicted of a dangerous offense or a serious offense still gets civil rights back automatically after a first felony, but the firearm right stays suspended. Subsection D sends that person to A.R.S. § 13-910 for a separate application. One more trap. If your discharge or your set aside came before 2022, do not assume the firearm right restored on its own. Pull the record and confirm before you touch a firearm.

How do you restore civil rights after more than one felony?

You file an application under A.R.S. § 13-908 in superior court after your final discharge. Final discharge means you completed probation or received an absolute discharge from prison. The clerk charges no filing fee and sends a copy to the prosecutor’s office, which gets a chance to respond.

The judge holds discretion. The law says restoration “is in the discretion of the judicial officer,” so time alone does not force a grant. A person with a conviction from another state or from federal court files in the Arizona county where they live now. The same application covers a first offender who still owes victim restitution. Our guide to rights restoration in Arizona walks through what goes in the application and what the judge reads first.

How do you restore gun rights in Arizona?

You apply under A.R.S. § 13-910 and ask the judge for a signed order. The law sets two hard limits and nothing else. A person convicted of a dangerous offense is barred from filing at all. A person convicted of a serious offense, a term Arizona law defines by a fixed list of crimes, waits ten years from absolute discharge. Everyone else files after discharge with no waiting period.

Discretion again sits with the judge, and the section lists no factors, so the application has to carry its own weight: time since discharge, conduct since, work, family, and a plain reason for wanting the right back. Our restore firearm rights service page explains what we file, and our step-by-step post on restoring gun rights after a conviction covers the hearing itself.

Which convictions block gun rights but leave civil rights open?

Dangerous offenses and serious offenses. A dangerous offense involves a deadly weapon, a dangerous instrument, or serious physical injury to another person, and it bars firearm restoration for life under A.R.S. § 13-910. The same conviction leaves civil rights restorable through A.R.S. § 13-908 once you reach final discharge. You vote. You serve on a jury. You do not own a firearm.

A serious offense, which Arizona law defines by a list that includes armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder, delays the firearm application and leaves civil rights untouched. A dangerous offense also falls outside the set aside under subsection P of A.R.S. § 13-905, so the set aside route to firearm rights closes as well. These are the cases where “I got my rights back” is true at the polling place and false at the gun counter.

Does a set aside restore civil rights and gun rights?

A set aside under A.R.S. § 13-905 releases you from the penalties and disabilities of the conviction, and subsection O restores your right to possess a firearm, except after a serious offense. For most people, a granted set aside handles gun rights inside the same order. The clerk charges no filing fee under subsection B.

Civil rights ride along in a different way. If you were a first felony offender with restitution paid, your civil rights already came back under A.R.S. § 13-907 at discharge, and the set aside order confirms the package. If you had a prior felony, the set aside order by itself says nothing about voting or jury service, so we file the A.R.S. § 13-908 application alongside it and ask for one order that covers everything. Our post on whether a set aside restores gun rights covers the firearm piece in depth, and the set aside service page covers the filing.

Does sealing your record restore either right?

No. Sealing under A.R.S. § 13-911 takes the case out of the public court record and off most background checks. It does not lift the suspension of your rights, and it does not produce the order a firearms dealer or a jury commissioner looks for. A sealed felony with no restoration order is still a felony for firearm purposes.

Sealing has other limits worth stating plainly. It removes the public court record. It does not remove a news story, a Google result, or a mugshot site. As of 2026, a convicted person waits five years after sentence completion on a class 4, 5, or 6 felony and ten years on a class 2 or 3, while a dismissal has no waiting period at all. Rights restoration carries no such schedule for most people, which is why we often file the restoration first and the sealing when the clock runs out. Our sealing records page covers the rest.

How do you prove your rights are back?

With a court order, or with a DPS record that shows the restoration. Under A.R.S. § 13-906, when rights restore automatically, the clerk notifies the Department of Public Safety and states whether the firearm right is included. When a judge restores rights by order, the clerk sends the same notice. DPS then annotates your criminal history to show the restoration and any exception, without removing the conviction itself.

That annotation is what a background check reads. Problems start when the clerk never sent the notice, which happens on older cases more than it should, or when a person assumes rights returned when a prior felony blocked the automatic path. Before you fill out a federal firearms form, pull your DPS record and read it. A false answer on that form is a new felony. If the record is silent, an application under A.R.S. § 13-910 produces an order that leaves no doubt.

What does the judge weigh on a firearm application?

A.R.S. § 13-910 lists no factors, so judges borrow from the set aside list in A.R.S. § 13-905(C): the nature of the offense, your compliance with probation or prison rules, any later convictions, victim input and restitution status, time since you finished your sentence, and your age at the time. A prosecutor who objects usually points at the offense itself or at something recent.

What moves a judge is stability since discharge. Steady work, no new arrests, restitution paid in full, and a plain reason for wanting the right back, whether that is hunting, home defense, or a job. A bare form with no story behind it loses to a prepared application with the right exhibits. Judges deny these applications. A sealing denial bars a refile for three years, while a firearm denial carries no refiling bar in the section, so the fix is more time and a stronger file.

Why should you choose AZ Record Removal?

Rights restoration is a filing we handle constantly, and we file it alongside the set aside and the sealing when a case qualifies, so one hearing covers everything. We are owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law. Our founder, Zachary Divelbiss, used these same tools on his own six convictions before he filed for anyone else.

Three concrete reasons. We pull your record and tell you what it shows before you pay, so a person whose rights already restored under A.R.S. § 13-907 hears that instead of buying a filing they do not need. We file the applications and track the court until the signed order is in your hands and DPS has the notice. We charge one flat fee per case, listed on our pricing page, with no court fees added. We hold 250+ five-star Google reviews. Our phones are answered around the clock at 602-900-6240, and consultations are scheduled during business hours.

What should you do next?

Find out which category you fall into before you file anything. Take our free eligibility quiz, which asks about priors, restitution, and the type of offense, the same three details that decide the civil rights vs gun rights question for your case. Then call 602-900-6240. We will tell you whether you need an application, which one, and what we would put in front of the judge. No judge is required to grant restoration, and putting a prepared application in front of the judge is the whole job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are gun rights a civil right in Arizona?

Arizona lists the right to possess a firearm alongside voting, jury service, and public office as rights suspended by a felony, so in that sense yes. Restoration treats it differently. Civil rights return under A.R.S. § 13-907 or A.R.S. § 13-908, while the firearm right follows A.R.S. § 13-910, with its own bars for dangerous and serious offenses and a separate order at the end.

If you vote again, does that mean you own a gun again?

Not on its own. Voting rights return for almost everyone at final discharge, either automatically or by application. The firearm right returns automatically only after a first felony that was neither dangerous nor serious, and only under the 2022 version of the law. Check your DPS record or the order itself before you treat the two as a package.

Do you need a lawyer to restore your rights in Arizona?

No law requires one. The application under A.R.S. § 13-908 carries no filing fee, and a person files either application alone. The judge holds discretion on both, and the prosecutor receives a copy and often responds. A prepared application with a record of stability since discharge is what wins, and that preparation is where a lawyer earns the fee.

Does a set aside restore gun rights after a serious offense?

No. Subsection O of A.R.S. § 13-905 restores the firearm right on a set aside except for a person convicted of a serious offense as Arizona law defines that term. That person still receives the set aside if the judge grants it, and civil rights return by the usual routes, but the firearm application under A.R.S. § 13-910 is a separate filing with its own waiting period.