Very interesting - never knew about the 208. Interesting that they need to add a surrender order for a 208 but it's automatic for a 209A and now for a 258E as well.
The surrender was an amendment to an existing 208, which was was partly the no abuse thing I'm sure, but also because I held FFLs in both NH and MA and a MA dealers license and the judge didn't want to affect my earning potential. Wasn't that nice of her.
The funny part was that when I did find out about the temp amendment, my ex had claimed to the judge that she hadn't know about the guns. Think about this, when we were together I'm doing transfers in the Livingroom and had 2 cases of Russian SKSs in the basement, and I would come and go in full PO uniform, kept a handgun in a lockbox on the nightstand, and she claimed not to know. When I got it vacated she contradicted that statement by testifying that that she knew and had no problem with my owning guns. WTF What she didn't know was that by the time she went for the amendment I had surrendered the FFLs and MA license and got rid of all but a few guns, and those were in storage more than an hour away.
And since I know it's being thought, why did she go for the RO thing. When we separated we both said we wanted to try reconciling, I did not want to put my kids through what I went through. But in the end she didn't ever agree to talk and her past behavior, well lets just say it was clear she was done with me. So I settled into visitation and focused on the kids, but I wasn't going to be the one to file first. And there is the catch. She was a Jehovah's Witness and couldn't file for divorce unless I was abusive or unfaithful. I wasn't JW but they knew me at the Kingdom Hall. If she did they would disassociate her (a real thing, her sister was disassociated, had to walk out of their mother's house and never heard from again). She predicted, quite accurately, that if she made my life a living hell I would file for divorce.
And thanks to MA, even though this was a single incidence in my life, happened decades ago, and everything has been dismissed, vacated, and sealed, MA still holds it over my head like a 10 ton block of concrete. Ya, it's hard to put it behind you when there is someone that keeps holding it over you.