But it didn’t work at all. It did not prevent a prohibited person from possessing a firearm. Had the address on your ID been old you could have continued to possess that gun.
Do you know what would keep you from possessing a firearm, at least for a while? Having your ass locked up for committing 2 felonies and then being dumb enough to confess to them online.
I could have missed something written by OP late but the initial OP statement…
" That particular type of “domestic violence with child present” carries more weight than I guess your run-of-the-mill battery charge, which is what I thought I was convicted of. And probably mis-remembered. It was 16 years ago."
…doesn’t sound ‘deliberate’ and also there’s a near contradiction in your own statement ‘you deliberately broke the law’ v ‘they cut you a break because they assumed that you did not do this willfully’. To me ‘deliberately’ and ‘willfully’ are pretty much synonyms.
I can’t evaluate what OP should have remembered (or might really have remembered but not admitted so). Also I know various laws don’t excuse you for ‘not remembering’ anyway. There might be a (reasonable) presumption you’d go back and look it up.
My real comment is bigger picture, that federal law IMO is now overloaded with harsh penalties for process violations, laws enacted to avoid prohibiting popular things. For example the idea of sentencing people who ‘use’ guns (sounds simple but in reality somebody is going to get unfairly screwed by that in real life) in crimes to a zillion years, to avoid imposing some much milder actual gun control law (on the spectrum of this forum I’m probably a ‘gun nut’ to most, but among real pro gun people I’m more of a wishy washy fellow traveler of gun grabbers 
). But guns are far from the only case. I’d erase the federal criminal code and start over (have the replacement before erasing, of course).
That said, the law’s the law, obviously (same goes for eg. immigration laws somebody thinks are too harsh, that’s no excuse to ignore them). And even without the syndrome where the federal govt imposes unduly harsh laws with unfair criteria of intent, if you do anything to ‘keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them’, you’re going to end up prohibiting guns for some people for no really good reason in their particular case. And you’e going to fail to take them out of the hands of some people who should have them taken way. Type I and type II errors will occur, to large absolute numbers of people in a 300mil+ country. That’s just life.
Thanks. This is an interesting take and in line with what I was looking for. Thanks to ultravires, too.
What I was commenting on was the thinking of the BATFE. I imagine that the agent called the gun dealer after this was found and was told that the dealer transferred the gun because the time period had expired. Then it either went up the chain or perhaps there was a standard policy in that area on enforcement. I imagined that they looked at the OP’s record, realized that he wasn’t Ted Bundy and decided to go and knock to get the gun back instead of clogging up the court docket with him.
Part of this was their likely belief that he did it unintentionally perhaps thinking that he was only convicted of simple battery or whatever. The problem is that in that thread from 2012, he stated that he slapped his wife during the incident, and was provided a link which showed that he was prohibited from buying guns. If the feds had that thread at their disposal, they might not have cut him a break.
I agree that there are too many federal laws, and IMHO there should be no federal gun laws with regard to point of purchase sales. That is an internal police matter for the states. However, I would rather hold that opinion from home instead of inside a federal prison.
If the ever-omnipresent “they” want to arrest me for this felonious activity of mine then please.
I went back an read the other thread, to see what we were talking about. And I got the very clear message from that thread that “You won’t know until you fill out the form and apply.”
Which the OP did, and waited, as described in the OP, and than, after the waiting period, was given the gun.
The other point that has been raised is that the OP must of known the important facts of his conviction. I don’t accept that either. I can tell you my exact marks for my good subjects on my most important school examination. For some reason I can never remember the exact value for my worst subject. And I wasn’t even broken at the time. Some of my convictions I have trouble even remembering at all. It’s not stuff I like to think about, and I had other things happening in my life at the time that were a lot more critical than the crime or the chance of going to jail for a couple of years.
The OP knew he had a previous conviction of domestic violence. He also signed a form stating, "I understand that a person who answers “yes” to any of the questions 11.b. through 11.i and/or 12.b. through 12.c. is prohibited from purchasing or receiving a firearm."
Question 11i is “Have you ever been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence?”
This was pointed out to him several years ago. He still purchased the gun anyway. He willingly committed a felony. Several. It was suggested in the previous thread that he take steps to have his rights reinstated. Instead of doing that, he decided to just roll the dice.
I earlier stated that I might have missed a later statement by OP on this thread. I guess what I missed that others read was a years earlier thread by the same person. Anyway, my understanding is that OP’s claimed understanding is that slapping his wife did not automatically mean the conviction was for ‘domestic violence’, but rather he recalled it as ‘simple battery’. There seems after all no doubt that the victim involved was the wife or domestic partner or whatever, not some other random person. Is it plausible for OP to say ‘I remember this as a simple assault conviction not a domestic violence conviction’ ? IANAL, don’t know. I wonder if those strongly stating ‘you deliberately lied on that form’ are giving a legal opinion or just a seat-of-the-pants common sense opinion that if a domestic partner was the victim, then hell yes it was a domestic violence conviction. Again I’m not sure if that’s true legally.
Besides just too many federal laws (we agree) in general, aside from this case, I disagree with the idea of harsh penalties for process crimes. I can’t see 10 yr sentences for lying on forms. That’s equivalent to a sentence for illegal killing (if not ‘first degree murder’) in practice sometimes in the US and more frequently in other less incarceration oriented countries. I think it comes from a kind of counter productive populism that’s been operating in the US for a long time, isn’t just on the right, didn’t start with recent election(s). If I were in Congress I would never vote for more than a year or two in prison and life altering felony conviction for putting the wrong thing of a govt piece of paper. Especially since as I believe this case illustrates, it’s often not 100% clear cut the true guilt. Or if the sentence is anything like 10 yrs, then it should come with clear provision that govt has to absolutely prove the person knew the right answer but put the wrong answer. It can’t just proof beyond reasonable doubt the person put the wrong answer along with the inference they knew or should have known it.
But sure, we’d want to be promoting federal justice reform without doing stuff that would land us in prison under the existing system.
As others have pointed out, in the other thread the OP acknowledged he knew it was a conviction for domestic violence and in that thread stated he wouldn’t break the law, just he went ahead and knowingly did just that.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, he committed a couple of felonies AND discussed them online.
According to the OP, he answered the domestic violence question on the form with a YES. If that’s true, then he wasn’t necessarily lying on the form, but he acknowledged that by answer that question in the affirmative, he was not legally allowed to purchase, or even possess, a firearm.
The thing is, a firearms dealer is not allowed to process a sale if someone marks YES on that question. There is no, “Go ahead and mark YES and well do a background check and see what happens.” If the dealer really did that, then the dealer could lose his/her license. He/She would have to have been the dumbest or most corrupt dealer imaginable.
Those who are strongly stating ‘you deliberately lied on the form’ are those who likely cannot believe that a dealer would be so incompetent as to proceed with a sale and bother doing a NICS call-in if the customer marked YES in that box. It’s illegal to do so. I’ve been a firearms dealer in the past. If a customer marked YES in that box, I’d politely explain that they could not purchase or possess a firearm and bid them good day. It doesn’t matter what happens with the background check. If a customer marks YES, there is no sale. Period.
So, for a dealer to have actually gone ahead with the call-in and eventually allow the sale, the most likely scenario is that at some point, that answer was changed to a NO.
Either way, the OP admitted that he knew he had a domestic violence conviction, and knew that this prevented him from legally possessing firearms. It says as much on the form he signed and he was reminded of this fact by other posters in the previous thread. He was also given sound advice about having his rights restored.
We’re talking about a person illegally purchasing and possessing multiple firearms. We’re not talking about someone who lied on a job application or something.
Answering this and previous post, I admit I have not read everything this person ever posted on the forum, in large part because I don’t really care specifically about his situation. And I’d have to say it’s too far from my own to really relate to (when it comes to me real life I’m way too cautious to put anything on a govt form that might even be questionable).
But still not having done so, seems those answering who I guess have studied this person’s posts carefully still don’t have one clear story. The person did ‘deliberately lie’ on the form or ‘we have to conclude the answer was changed to a lie because the sale was made’? Not quite one story.
I still would not personally vote for process crimes with penalties anywhere near 10 yrs. again without 100% proof of willfulness. I just don’t think it’s good law, and I think the fuzziness about ‘deliberately lied’ v ‘the answer must have been changed to no’ (or myriad other screw ups or missing or wrong info from OP at various points on the forum, who knows?) illustrates my point.
Whew! From the thread title, I thought it was going to involve gun control laws being implicated in an event at your place of employment. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop on that scenario.
Fortunately, there’s about a million other things a father and sons can do together that might bring them closer together, that will also result in self-improvement, etc., even when the weather is bad.
No?
Arrest ≠ conviction yet you were both arrested & convicted.
In the earlier thread you stated that you slapped her after she kicked & scratched you, leaving marks on your face.. Did you hire a lawyer or plead guilty on your own? Did the issue of self-defense ever come up? The way it was stated, I’m surprised that you received a conviction for defending yourself.
You make it sound as if someone other people hard this information unavailable to you, rather than something which was linked (several times!) in this thread.
If clicking on a link is too hard, this is the relevant part
(my emphasis) so the speculation that he may not have realized what happened is pretty silly.
If the excuse for not bothering to read the thread is that you are only interested in the larger question, then it’s easy enough to simply stick to the larger question and avoiding speculating on something which has already been discussed in depth in the thread.
Here’s something that just occurred to me: OP claims, from the earlier thread, that he had scratch marks on his face. Just how noticeable were these? And the responding law enforcement officers took no note of the scratch marks on his face?
I must presume that, upon arrest, mug shots were promptly taken. Were those scratch marks visible on those pictures? If so, then there’s a permanent record of them.
What is the “process crime” you are referring to? Lying on a form? Or possession/receipt of a firearm by a restricted person? I don’t necessarily think the former deserves a 10 year sentence. The latter, on the other hand, deserves to be prosecuted and sentenced however a judge may deem appropriate. The public wants more gun laws and restrictions, yet here we are dismissing the ones that already exist.
Not just you.
At first I was thinking the tail on a 16 year old DV offense was ridiculously long. For my part, I can’t be relied upon to process information in quite the same way I did 16 years ago. But then, now or then, I can’t see smacking my domestic partner as an option preferable to leaving the building. I guess the law is designed to guard against folks who are inclined to choose the more expedient conflict resolution.
Sorry you got robbed by the feds, FoieGrasIsEvil. But stop buying guns.
Here is what a purchaser would see on the form:
Then if you read the instructions for Question 11.i you see this:
Bolding mine. It clearly states that it includes “assault and battery” when the offense is committed by a defined party.
Then before you sign it states this:
I’m not sure how much plainer it can be without requiring that an attorney be present when you are buying a gun.
How did he get robbed?
He purchased a gun illegally, committing at least a couple of felonies in the process and apparently is lucky (so far) that he is getting by with the illegal firearm simply being confiscated and he isn’t facing the full consequences of a rather stupid decision.
And yes, he should stop committing felonies. Wise advice which people normally don’t need to be reminded about.