<figure id="attachment_3025387" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3025387" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3025387" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/14ce4684-mel-gibson-epa-040425.webp" alt="Mel Gibson EPA 040425" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3025387" class="wp-caption-text">Mel Gibson can now own guns again despite his misdemeanour charge 14 years ago. (EPA Images pic)</figcaption></figure>
COLORADO: The US justice department will allow actor Mel Gibson to own guns again, despite his 2011 conviction on a domestic violence charge, the New York Times reported today.
The Times, citing unnamed sources familiar with the justice department decision, reported that Gibson, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, was among nine other people whose right to own a gun would be restored.
Their names will soon be published in the federal register.
Federal law bars most people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a firearm.
Gibson was sentenced by a California judge to three years of probation 14 years ago on a misdemeanour charge for hitting his then girlfriend.
Gibson pleaded no contest to the charge as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time.
A representative for Gibson said he had no immediate comment.
The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House directed a request for comment to the justice department.
The Times reported that the issue over Gibson&#8217;s gun rights caused strife within the justice department because Elizabeth Oyer, a pardon attorney for the department, had last month refused to agree to restore the actor&#8217;s right to own a gun.
She was fired the next day.
Oyer, in an interview with the Times, said she had been told by a senior justice department leader that Gibson&#8217;s right to own a weapon should be restored based on the fact that he had a personal relationship with the president.
Oyer said her refusal to agree was not a political decision, but based on her not having done a background investigation into Gibson&#8217;s case and because she considered a domestic violence conviction to be extremely worrying.
Trump, a few days before his inauguration in January, named Gibson, along with the actors Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight, as &#8220;special ambassadors&#8221; to Hollywood.

MatchPoint Times

US justice department restores Mel Gibson’s right to own a gun

The actor was sentenced to three years of probation in 2011 for hitting his then girlfriend.

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