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My understanding is that different states have different definitions for the meaning of “felon” and the applicability depends on possible jail time, not actual jail time.

Given that “felon” means “person that’s been convicted of a felony at some point in their life” and the fact that “felony” covers such a wide variety of crimes, it is a genuinely useless indicator of context.

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Counterpoint: starting with assuming over-specific context is not entirely useful and there is general consensus on broad meanings of both “felon” and “felony”. We can then quickly either narrow down to specific instances of those words, or stay in broader generalizations depending on where the conversation goes.

Jump too quickly into arguing for hyper-specific contexts bringing meaninglessness to colloquial, general contexts is a surefire way to signal to counterparties you are unwilling to play the negotiation-over-contexts games necessary for smooth conversation with most people generally.

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