if you beat up your wife, and you are convicted of domestic violence, you can not legally own a gun.

In most places a conviction is not necessary. If any complaint of "domestic violence" has ever been made in which you were involved, and you were taken into custody, in most jurisdictions it will be nearly impossible for you to legally own or posses a gun.

A "domestic violence" complaint does not mean that there was violence of any kind, but could just be a couple yelling at each other loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

Coupled with the policy in many places that on any call in which police respond to a "domestic disturbance" at least one party must be taken into custody (often whichever one is most willing to leave to de-fuse the situation) there are quite a few people who likely are innocently affected.

The law also was made retroactive, so an old record for submitting to "custody" when it was just the "convenient thing to do" could now prevent you from legally owning or possessing. This "new provision" resulted in at least 3 officers on my local police force being forced to leave the force, despite what appeared to be perfectly respectable histories of performance as police officers and no charges or convictions in any of the cases.

John