WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to create a path for people with criminal convictions to own guns again, an issue that became contentious at the agency when officials there sought to restore that right to actor Mel Gibson, a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump’s.

The move would hand a victory to gun rights supporters less than a year after the Supreme Court ruled that the government could restrict firearms access to people facing restraining orders for domestic violence.

The department still supports laws ensuring “violent and dangerous people” cannot lawfully acquire firearms, as long as there is “an appropriate avenue” to restore rights to people who have earned the chance to own guns again, according to an interim rule set to be published Thursday in The Federal Register.

Determining whose gun rights should be restored depends on a number of factors, the notice says, including “a combination of the nature of their past criminal activity and their subsequent and current law-abiding behavior.”

— The New York Times