Lazs is right, and thats why I brought this up. Not because this numbskull really needs defending, although I still dont see where he hurt anyone. The problem is that the rules are too broad and vague. Depending on who is doing the interpreting of the rules, you can be barred from EVER owning a gun again without ever actually doing anything wrong or doing drugs or being psychotic. If someone THINKS any of those things about you, and convinces an official, you could end up losing your rights.
Case in point. Friend of mine is a painter by trade, made decent money until his ex-wife cleaned him out in their divorce. So he moves to the big city for bigger paying jobs (he has custody of their daughter and really was left with next to nothing). Lets just say he had enough guns around the house to defend it against a small army if necessary (all bought legally). Where he was living at the time, he needed them. He decided that he just wasnt cutting it as an independent contractor, so he hired on with a general that does lots of work year round and is always in need of good help. So one evening after work, they stop at a bar and have a few beers. My friend is telling some of the others about his ex-wife's antics, and how he was having a hard time raising their daughter alone. One of the job bosses tells him about this 800 number you can call for free counseling and such. Thinking its for parenting advice, my friend calls and makes an appointment with these people. The person he goes to see is actually a clinical psychologist, and while she does give him some advice to help with raising his daughter, she is evaluating him. She diagnoses him as suffering from mild situational depression (which is understandable in his circumstances), and prescribes him with some drug as a short term "boost". He never filled the prescription, heck he wont even take aspirin unless he feels like his head is about to split open. Between this point and the next, he bought or traded for maybe 4 or 5 guns (all legal, with paperwork). So the next point is his deadbeat ex-wife tracks him down, and shes out of cash and has nowhere to go. So she sponges off of him for a couple weeks before he tells her to get the **** out. She leaves, and a couple days go by. The cops come knocking on his door. She's pressing charges against him for assault. The daughter was there and can testify that the mother is full of ****, but in the meantime they have to go through an investigation. The cops search the apt. They catalog all the guns. They do a history check. Somehow (I'm guessing because it was a state run agency), the fact of his being treated at the "clinic" for depression turns up, and his prescription (the one he never filled). They looked at the guns he had obtained since being treated, and arrested him on felony gun charges for lying on his application. He didnt consider what he got as "treatment", it was just talking to someone at a clinic about his marriage and raising his daughter. He never considered himself "depressed". He thought the lady doctor was being nice by trying to give him the prescription. The state says he was treated for a mental condition and is no longer allowed to own weapons. Now, even the doctor who diagnosed him is willing to testify in court that his condition was situational, and should not bar him from owning a gun. However, lying on the application is a federal crime, and the feds havent decided if THEY are going to charge him yet. Bottom line here, the wrong judge in either court room could not only mean he never owns a gun again, but that he could go to jail when he never knowingly committed a crime.
Now somebody tell me the rules work the way they are supposed to.
