While you don't think it is right to punish a person for the rest of their life for committing a felony not involving a gun, your husband apparently committed a felony as an adult that you describe as young and stupid at the time. When he committed the felony the laws in place at the time include him retaining the felony status for the rest of his life. As with the prison time that is one aspect of the punishment process, the felony status and loss of rights is another aspect. Both are the rammifications that come with committing a felony, a felony he committed voluntarily. He may have been young and stupid as you said, by why should the courts give special consideration to young and stupid people? Being young and stupid are not grounds for expunging the felony record of adults. Depending on your state, it might have been possible to get some of your husband's rights back (as noted), but I am guessing that wasn't attempted. If your state allows for this, then why didn't your husband petition to get back his rights? If he did petition unsuccessfully, why was he rejected?
He would not be in trouble at all if he didn't have the felony on his record? Probably not, but he does have a felony on his record because he is a felon and felons are precluded from specific activities like handling firearms or voting. He originally broke the law voluntarily as an adult. For that, you called him young and stupid. Now, he voluntarily broke the law as a middle-aged adult. So I am guessing that makes him middle-aged and stupid as he has trouble with committing felonies.
You said y'all go camping a lot and it would be nice for your husband to be able to protect his family from wild animals or whatever. Well, either y'all need to be diligent in choosing camp locations that don't run the risk of dangers like wild animals, make use of alternative forms of protection such as pepper spray (which may be about the most powerful thing some parks will allow as some definitely don't allow guns for anyone other than LEOs), or not go camping.
Just curious, are you a felon as well? What precludes you from owning a firearm and providing camp defense against wild animals or whatever? Protection isn't just a man's job.
It is not doing anyone any good to put this man behind bars, especially prison, where your life can change forever. It does however affect these young children and not in a good way.
No doubt about it, being sent to prison is tough on people. No doubt that it is a darn shame that your 4 kids won't have a father around for the next two years and that isn't going to be beneficial to the kids at all. Sadly, your husband wasn't overly concerned with the rammifications of committing a felony when he was young and stupid and given that he is now a felon, knew he is a felon when handling the gun and knew it was illegal for him to do so, he apparently didn't seem overly concerned about the legal rammifications for breaking the law yet again.
You are right. It will be hard on the kids. It is a darned shame that your husband did not take his family into consideration before breaking the law. I just can't imagine having three kids, one on the way, and doing what he did. Why would he have put himself in a position by breaking the law that would negatively impact the childhood of his kids? It is not the fault of the courts that your husband was breaking the law that results in depriving his children of a father figure..
You know, there are two types of people who break the law. There are those who are dumb for breaking the law and those dumb enough to break the law and get caught. Following the query of TheBluesMan, something just isn't right with the story. The odds of getting caught would have to be astronomically in your husband's favor for not getting caught. Think about it. What are the odds that out in a remote area riding quadrunners in a creek that your husband held the friend's gun pack for a very short period of time while the guy road in the creek, that your husband was spotted by somebody in law enforcement while holding the gun and that the law enforcement officer recognized your husband as a person with a felony conviction from 15 years ago and hence was now breaking the law?
Something must have been done to draw attention of law enforcement to the location where they were riding. What was it? Are quad runners allowed where they were riding? Did they have a confrontation with other people who felt threatened enough to call the police? Were they shooting?
You are not giving us the whole story. There is just no way that your husband held a pack with a gun for a brief period of time in a place that usually would not have many people or cops, and was recognized as a felon with a gun and subsequently arrested, tried, and sentenced. Why were the authorities there and what was done that required the authorities to check IDs of the people present, thereby determining your husband was a felon?
Yep, it is a darned shame your husband engaged in illegal activities and now will be depriving you of a husband and your kids, all four of them, a father. Maybe after he gets out this time that he can remain law abiding long enough for the kids to get grown.
Funny thing I have noticed over the years. Few law abiding citizens commit time and effort to try to change the severity and rammifications of felony convictions or try to have felony laws reclassified as misdemeanors. They don't put forth time in such endeavors as most have little concern for the hardships of felons and while they may not completely support the law, they find the notion repulsive that as law abiding citizens that they would be working to grant freedoms to criminals, reduce punishments, etc. Instead, those most interested in fighting such matters are usually felons themselves, know or are related to felons, or are involved with some do-gooder organization like Amnesty International.
You did know your husband was a felon, right? So you married him and I am guessing you have been married to him for at least a few years. So tell me, diana, just how much time your husband spent in the last 15 years after his felony conviction fighting for criminal rights and how much time you spent after getting with your husband to fight for criminal rights? How much time in your adult life have you worked to change these unfair laws? The laws that you consider unfair have been around for a very long time and were in place when you became an adult. From your post, I am of the impression that you haven't done a darned thing, nor has your husband in fighting for criminal rights before now. If you had, then no doubt you would have posted information on the endeavors.
So why weren't you crusading for criminal rights before now? Probably because you really didn't think the issue was terribly important. It is only now terribly important because your husband broke the law again and his illegal act is resulting in a negative impact on you and your family.
