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This only applies to involuntary commitments. If you're feeling suicidal and check yourself into a mental hospital for treatment, it's not going to affect your ability to buy a gun. On the other hand, if you attempt suicide and get 302'd (in PA), it will. The way the law is set up now actually encourages people to seek voluntary treatment before it becomes enough of a problem that the state has to intervene.
For the purpose of federal law, unless theres' been intervening changes to the law or caselaw, 302s don't count, because they're not adversarial or judicial hearings and often run ex parte. They do count for state law, though.
The mental defective side of the bar has been used very widely, if not consistently. And some places will ingest someone who comes to them voluntarily as if they weren't willing (or even treat a voluntary admission as involuntary without undergoing the normal procedures), though thankfully that's one of the few places that courts have been willing to push back on.
But otherwise, yes; federal regulations require that it be involuntary.
I will caveat that many states have separate rules that trigger on voluntary commitment, or don't even require commitment at all (hey, Hawaii!). New Jersey is one such state; applications for a purchase permit require applicants to complete a consent to mental health record search form. While the statute only specifically prohibits giving permits to people with a voluntary or involuntary current committment (no, I don't know why), both state courts and police generally treat it as a blanket prohibition, along with many inpatient procedures. T.B. here isn't even getting to that point, so he can't challenge it, either.
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The average person does not understand this.
Because it is not, in fact, true. In New Jersey (and perhaps other states) if you check yourself into a mental hospital you are disqualified from buying a gun. If you're involuntarily committed you can remove the disqualification by getting your record expunged, but I do not believe there is an expungement process for voluntary committement.
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In NJ, any commitment or mental health diagnosis is grounds for denial of a gun permit, and once you've been diagnosed the burden of proof is on you to show it's not unsafe for you to own a gun.
(and a 302 or equivalent is a nonjudicial process, which means you get to lose your gun rights forever nationwide on the word of a cop and a doctor)
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