You are not banned for life! That is misinformation, federal law states that anyone no matter what offense or classification is barred from owning firearms if you could have received longer than 1 year in jail / prison. However, if your offense was a state offense (not a federal offense) you can get your offense cleared from your record after some time. If you had a felony in state you must have your firearms rights restored before owning a firearm. In Washington state you must wait five years from the date of release from an institution plus have a clean record and have all fines / restitution paid in full before petitioning for restoration of firearms rights. In addition to that, there are allot of offenses that bar you for life. I highly recommend you contact an attorney if the sentencing guidlines shows you could have been sentenced to a year or more regardless if you did that amount of time or not. If it's just a misdemeanor and the maximum sentence you could have received was less than one year then you are ok.