My question involves criminal records for the state of: Federal
Hi. I wanted to get some opinions on a matter I've been researching. I'm aware that if someone is convicted of a federal felony that there is no expungement at this time, and that it's considered that a presidential pardon is the only way to get gun rights restored. There is a provision that allows the ATF to review applications to restore rights, and if they deny the petition, a court may decide, but since 1992, congress has refused to allocate any funds in the budget for the review of applications, and in an U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the the early 2000's, they ruled that failure to process and application did not equal a denial and therefore that the courts couldn't hear cases on restoring rights under this law unless there was an actual denial by the ATF.
In 2008 the Heller decision by the Supreme court seemingly opened the door for felons to challenge in the courts to have their gun rights restored. A few cases have came about since in the lower courts with the courts denying all request, but making it a point to note in the words of their rulings that there may be a case in the future that forces them to consider the issue of restoring rights to some types of felons, but that the examples at the time weren't the types of felons who would be able to make such a case (I believe the guy in the 4th circuit case in which this general language was used in the decision was a multiple time federal convicted crack dealer and had some state violent offenses involving weapons, so he obviously wasn't a great example to make a strong case for the restoration of gun rights).
Now here's something interesting I found, and what my question centers around. We know that a lot of states have some sort of process by which one can restore their civil rights, and in some circumstances these automatically restore the rights to own a firearm under state late. And apparently in an 1986 amendment to the Gun Control Act, state restoration of civil rights gives a felon their gun rights back, unless the restoration of rights explicitly specifies that guns rights are not restored. Now it seems to be generally accepted that this only applies to felons who were convicted in state courts. However, I found this article about a case from 1991 that went to the federal 9th circuit court of appeals. Here is the link: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-05-...1_civil-rights . In this case, the court ruled 2-1 to overturn a federal conviction of a man who had a prior federal felony and was found in possession of firearms, the argument being that because his civil rights were restored under Arizona law that he was legally allowed to own firearms and that congress must have meant for the states to have power to decide who can own a gun again in their state regardless of the jurisdiction of the conviction when they added that amendment to the GCA. The man's attorney made a great point when he said it would be silly for two felons to live next door to one another both guilty of the same type of crime and one be able to own a firearm and the other not to be able to simply because he was convicted in federal court instead of state, and apparently the federal judges hearing the case in appeals court agreed with him.
I searched for more info on this case and to see if it was ever challenged further by the government and all I could find was a decision by the same court declining to hear it again when the government tried to fight it further and they were denied and the decision stood. Obviously it could've gone to the Supreme Court and been overturned, but I can't find any record of this happening, and if it didn't happen, it means that a federal felon was allowed by a federal court to have firearms because of a state civil rights restoration. So my question is, if we have a ruling by the 9th circuit saying that restoration of state civil rights allows one to own a firearm even if their conviction was in federal court, then would it not be possible for someone with a federal conviction to move to Arizona, have their civil rights restored under state law, and then petition the federal court in that district to order the ATF to restore their firearms rights based on their 1991 decision on the matter? Anyone know of any cases where this has been brought back up? Interested to hear thoughts and opinions on this from attorneys.

