sense because ordinarily firearm possession is lawful and in fact in most cases constitutionally protected so it only makes sense that a person should be required to know he fits within that status before  we don't have that know a requirement so why should we in syria is there because nine twenty forty two states that the person is knowingly violate nine twenty two g knowingly modifies the verb violate and the direct object nine twenty two g several of the provisions that are listed in one twenty four and two do have other types of knowledge requirements but the knowingly still forms the fault or the baseline knowledge if there is not an otherwise inserted knowledge additionally this court's precedent and that makes sense in light of this court's precedent which court attaches immense reya to every element the criminalizes otherwise innocent conduct in fact this court does so even when knowingly is not in the yes or honor and so what is the difference between the two this court has carved out a very narrow exception for jurisdiction because that relates only to the power of the congress to legislate whereas in our instance we're talking about a substantive fact something that criminalizes otherwise innocent conduct something that goes to the defendant's culpability but the theory behind the conclusion that there is no man's r for example the defendant's pond docked is not related to that interstate transportation there's no requirement that the defendant himself must transport the firearms in interstate commerce congress could attach a mental targeted the defendants conduct is not being targeted by that problem and it is some why why do we say that it's one final talking white what is the theory behind the conclusion that congress did directly but we infer that it didn't do it yes ron and the reason we did it we infer that because we think this is just not the kind of element the congress wants to have a mental requirement attached to unless it says or express that what reason would there be to in far the congress wanted the mental requirement to apply to the the defendant's own status first of all there is  language instruction statute they put knowingly directly into nine twenty two nine twenty four eight two in front of violate nine twenty two gee if they had only wanted to step in to apply to the excuse me to the possession element fail logically would have put it immediately in front of the possession element after the nine categories of people what if there were no mental or what if the statute itself made no mention of any men's rights even when the statute is silent tax supports us but also the courts inferences applying mens rea at each substantive element supports us also the purpose of folk in inserting knowingly in the first place in order to ensure cases require us to still requirements argument is supported by the statutes text and structure and we would respectfully submit the text in structure plain and so we don't need to go to the presumptions or legislative history but in the event the court feels it's not playing the next step is to look at the presumptions and this court's presumptions even if knowingly is not fair is for this court presumes knowingly is and once you reach the land of hate b s you have cause and prejudice that have to be shown for procedural default it's even harsher than harmless error when you get into the hey b s world and so the number of people who might want to ask for relief might be more that there is only a small but significant number of people out there who actually had a genuine dispute well their knowledge of their status were i suppose it would get to whether or not jury was instructed on the element of the offense that had to be that it had to be knowing so it may be broader than the now and in my experience felon in possession is almost always what people are charged with at this level because it's the easiest thing to prove you can prove whether they're a felon or not you can prove where they had a gun you don't have to get into all the messy stuff about what they were up to so i would think you'd be a very very substantial number of convictions but in the there's the practical and practical answer in all honesty is that not that many people are going to be able to overcome all the huge procedural hurdles that are placed in front of haiti's relief and unless they had a genuine issue of fact  trial there is for section one twenty two g approximately ninety five percent of guilty pleas and there's no reason to believe that that's going to change significantly one way now could you tell me  exactly what you think the what are the facts he would need to know to be guilty because you can't have a mistake of law and you can't and you can't be ignorant of the law so what are the facts the government would have to prove that he knew his result was conditioned yarn reste on his being a student yes wrong at that he knew he was admitted into this country lawfully on a student nonimmigrant visa that the visa had specific requirements and that he failed to comply with their violated those requirements all right does he need to know that card i read somewhere that he thought an defense that was posited that he wasn't lawfully in illegally in the country until an immigration judge had judged him to be so but that's not the issue now before the court it's the second aspect that so you're in the condition is that he knew he came in on a clean student visa that said he had to remain a student yes at least they show that he was told that at the time of admission and the chief said stopping a student that's enough yes  how do we not go to harm us here live at some point he knows he stopped going to school i'm apologizing how do how don't we have a harmless error here at some point he knows he stopped going to school we only have knows that he came in on a student visa because that's the only kind of these are he good so what's his why isn't this harmless error even if we reach this issue in your favor and our situation we only have one side of the story i mean does the opening suggest that there was a lot of confusion about your status as a student the government's evidence is all that we have because the defense didn't introduce it but if the defense had been allowed to introduce the hunting license there the court said there would be confusion because he didn't have to have knowledge but a hunting license was relevant because if he thought he was a student still if you're on an f one vis a you're allowed to possess a firearm anywhere at any time if you have a hunting license so the fact that he went out and got one and then went to the firing range and shot the firearms indicated would indicated there supported his defense additionally he was stopped for a traffic infraction and no one told him at that point that he had a warrant out for him and that he was illegally here which the court kept that out of evidence because it have caused confusion as to knowledge and as to status but again it would have been relevant to his knowledge if that was allowed to be a defense oppose someone who is admitted on a student visa  doesn't go to school has every reason to know understands that he has to continue in school for his visa to be valid and he has every reason to know that he's not any longer considered to be a student by the school has been there for months and months and months hasn't done one single thing but doesn't actually know for sure that they have expelled him your position is that that person would not fall within the statute our position is that that would be a jury question no the question is what in the end in in his heart of in his mind he does not know that he is not a student but he has every reason to know that he is no longer stood again wi if someone has every reason to know it can be inferred that the person does not know intent and knowledge all right what if the jury or the judge who ever is the fact finder comes to the conclusion he didn't really know but he had every reason to know is that person guilty on hochul to if the fact finder finds that he truly did not know then he would not be guilty here and used do you think that's really what congress meant here yes your honor but i don't think that will happen in that type of the situation i think that take for example the dreamers children who come into this country with their parents illegally live here all their lives and think they're law abiding citizens only to find out later in adulthood that they never were a law abiding citizens they're not citizens at all but if that person who had no idea he was here illegally or unlawfully possessed a gun he would be subject to ten years in prison under the the way th case the law has been interpreted by the court below we're asking the court to apply its mens rea of presumptions as the court has done in the past in every case when confronted by him and to look at th and to apply mens rea to the knowledge do the status element that are just fairly you see for the government to prove status like you're a felon in possession because there's a whole series of ways you should know you're selling transcript if you plead guilty could be one of them or a judgment of conviction you have to be there to get that but how about nine twenty two g three who  says where the status element is being addicted to control substance why would congress want to punish someone who was aware of being addicted because they sought help but not when someone could not someone who 's in denial meaning my parents yeah put me in a program but they put me in against my will if and if the person knew the facts underlying the legal definition of addicted they knew that they were dependent on those drugs they knew that when they were taking them they started having withdrawals or whatever the legal definition the facts and the how would the government be able to prove that cases practically speaking it's going to be proved by the same evidence that the government uses to show that person was addicted and then as in all the other statutes that require knowledge the jury will have to infer knowledge through reasonable inferences or find that there's reasonable inferences don't support the end knowledge and what about subparagraph aid which applies to a very to to a set of individuals who are to find a very complicated way so there has to be a restraining order that includes a finding that the person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner or child and then the order by each terms must explicitly prohibit the use attempted use or threaten use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury so it has to be  the defendant knew all of those things the defendant knew the fact that he had been to court or he had been given notice support because of a restraining order that was related to his violent content they have to know all the all those characteristics of the restraining order yes rahner which would be demonstrated by the restraining order that he received a copy of in the middle of the cases that's hasn't been prosecuted nearly as much as of course the felon in possession but the felon in possession is the ruster to because it shows if you have a judgment for the most part you're going to know why this judgment came about that you were facing ten years in prison a fifty years in prison or someone is charged with being a felon in possession and if the prosecution has to prove that the person knew that this offense was a felony can the prosecution be prohibited from can the defendant by offering to stipulate prohibit the prosecution from proving the nature of the felony because of all the jury knows is that there was a conviction for a felony you know the jury doesn't know how serious this crime was more serious it is the more likely it is the person was aware of it normally you can't force a party to agree to stipulate a fact that the parties entitle to prove which it may old chief an even stronger tool in the prosecutor's hands because the prosecutor would not have to stipulate if the defendant is challenging his knowledge of status people to charge for being phone in possession so then the prosecution can prove even if there's an offer to stipulate can prove well this person was previously convicted of rape or bank robbery  if that's true if the defendant is challenging his knowledge that it was a felony he's just challenging his knowledge that he ever was convicted that might be different but if he's challenging his knowledge that he knew this was a felony or that he knew it was a serious offense punishable by more than one year and he claims i didn't know that then he's made that probative the type of offense the nature of it and the name security mr chief justice and may it please the court the farm owners protection act does not take the unusual step of requiring proof that the defendant had subjective awareness of his own legal status nor does it create a safe harbor for allianz or felons who remain ignorant even recklessly ignorant of their own circumstances instead focal reflects the longstanding nationwide consensus that a defendant knowingly violates the statute if he despite his prohibited status knowingly visa from a certified institution and all of a sudden and denounce to him or her the school was decertified and so they're no longer in status w knowing their ill and illegality i get knowledge that application of the government's test in certain hypothetical examples that we could come up with would produce hard results and perhaps you're not comforted by the fact that this provision is applied many thousands of times every year and no one has been able to identify an example like the type you've raised or anything close to it like yes my question becomes what do we do with the staples presumption sure that you we're not going we're going to not read in pain or read that's correct and the only blameworthy conduct is if you're an illegal alien that's correct but our argument here is not that possessing a gun is blame or the or inherently dangerous and therefore you're charged with knowing the law our argument is that there are certain people who by virtue of their circumstances and status are charged with knowing or at least being on notice of whether they have a certain status so someone who is an alien has has an obligation if they are here in the united states to know whether they're here what if they're mistaken so it's a mistake of fact mistake of fact has always been recognized as a defense or put conversely knowledge has always been required going back to justice jackson and  fact it might be willing to acknowledge that well that would not be well once but in the camel's nose under the tent isn't it counsel intent matters except for when it doesn't knowledge matters except when it doesn't know your honor a mistake a fact is an affirmative  let me let me ask you just a just a follow up on the right since robert jackson's name has been invoked here morissette the contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transit notion that is universal and persistent and mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil what do we do with that and this this court's presumption that some mens rea is necessary and it is and here we're talking about the only thing that separates not just innocent conduct but constitutionally protected conduct potentially so that is is knowledge of the status knowledge that i am a felon i as you well know i had a case where the fellow was told by the judge that he was not a felon when he was convicted and yet he was put in jail for ten years afterwards because the government didn't have to prove that he knew  status what we do by justice jackson seven issue to us his admission was about creating strict liability offenses which this is not if you start with the presumption that the defendant is going to possess the go it wasn't just about that it was about men you've got excitement video as well so if you know all of those cases are ones in which there was a list of elements usually followed by some state some word like knowingly and the presumption is that it applies to all of the other element it is not and the other element if i just finish my question you can tell me i'm wrong for for as long as you want but the next element the elements that follow you you would admit the knowingly applies to but just this one how does that work  it's a it's a bit of grammatical gravity enough familiar with so the phrase knowingly violates in one twenty four e two we interpret to mean knowledge of conduct the same way that this court did in the international minerals and chemical corporation case at issue there was a statute that applied to someone who knowingly violates any such regulation what this court said is that requires knowledge of the specific acts or omissions that underlie the separate regulatory offense specific actual emissions is a direct quote and this court relied on the same understanding more recently in the bryant case which construed a different subsection of nine twenty four how how is the defendant blameworthy if he or she truly thought truly thought that the status was does focus on the question how is that person blameworthy so i'm not sure that they are but i think the more they'll ok let me stop you there then why should that person be subject to ten years in prison because the more relevant question whether the congress that enacted focus in one thousand nine hundred six had any reason given its fifty year history with the federal firearm laws to think that cases of that type would be a problem congress normally legislation to suppose and i think you're right in the sense that ninety nine percent of them are ninety percent of the time the school was so easy to prove but there are going to be those cases adult of cases where the defendant truly was mistaken about his or her status and you just said is not blameworthy in that circumstance i think i have that right and yet you would put that person in prison for up to ten years in the vast majority of those cases first of all almost all of these cases well what was wrong about my summary of your in the vast majority of cases the type of mistake that the defendant will have made will be a mistake of law they would have misunderstood possibly i'm sorry to interrupt possibly true and in those cases you won't have a problem but there are going to be some that are mistake of fact and yet and you've said the person's not point worthy so it is notoriously difficult to figure out what is a mistake of law versus fact and let me give you an example petitioner says he was mistaken about whether if he had a hunting license that allowed him to possess a gun it doesn't there is no legal right to possess a gun for an alien unlawfully in the country just because you have a hunting license but of course that is the type of mistake the defendants are liable to raise and given that ten thousand out of the eleven thousand prosecutions last year for nine twenty two g for were for being a felon in possession you're going to risk fundamentally changing really entire percent or i'm sorry where was everybody assuming that has to be a mistake of fact i mean law sometimes can be a fat and it person overstays is visa right so he doesn't know he's overstated isn't quite true what the law is there's a law that says it is a i serious crime twenty years in prison to stay in a federal building illegally after there is a rule which says you have to leave nobody knows about it in fact i just made it up so i doubt look there could be many situations where you just don't expect that person to need to know not necessarily the law that forbids the thing but where the thing itself is composed in part of a law many cases where they don't know what it is so we're in the supreme court has this ever said even in such a case always under all circumstances right to jail so i agree with you morally speaking that someone who makes the mistake of buying if you agree with the morally certain i have the naive view that criminal law by and large charge should follow morals and if it doesn't maybe we should look pretty hard or thought it was just as blacks justice jackson so if you re with that so go ahead where does it go it and knowledge that you have to be violating the law willfulness requirement congress made explicit that it was distinguishing between types of offenses for which willfulness was required the relatively minor offenses things like record keeping violations and it was leaving in place the normal not isn't  miss the question i agree with you that it is a willfulness requirement where we are looking at the statute that makes the thing unlawful iraq so don't look at that i agree with that but now let's look at that which it makes for now when we look at that which it makes unlawful sometimes though that which it makes on lawful could in part be composed of rules or laws sure and it's that part that i am uncertain you may know you know that that this court has always said you have to know the legal status or so does it has it said that have we said so i think that this court has consistently said that unless a willfulness requirement is imposed you do not in fact have to show that the defendant had any awareness that they were violating any law much less the specific law even including the instance where you have a criminal statute that has within it  way even assuming that congress thought there was some mens rea necessary with respect to status would congress have chosen knowingly and i think we know the answer to is no because we have such a subsection d the firearm dealer provision which applies where the defendant knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the person who's purchasing the gun has a prohibited status so why would congress presume that the firearm dealer has more information about the person purchasing the gun than the person who purchases the gun has about themselves so that's a very good point and unless so unless the tax tells us definitively what the mens rea element is for every element of a criminal statute is there anything to prevent us from inferring that the mental element required for ace for once one element is different from the mental element required for another element know presumably nine twenty four a to knowingly violates has to work the same way for all subsections not just g but d as well except the petitioners have a problem which is that you cannot knowingly violate the fireman  converse and legislate exceptions to every general rule that the baseline is knowing for every element in all of the sudden congress has another definition of the changes it which it doesn't in the dealer definition the specific governs the general so it's not clear how you get there texturally but it also doesn't explain why for instance in subsection h or a six congress has specified knowledge requirement they are an age for instance you have to know that your employer has a prohibited status so why would congress specify knowledge there if you were already going to in court and knowingly requirement into every provision your i don't i don't agree with you on the fact it has to be read the same way and  opinions we have long lists of things and this one is like that and this is like that you know things like that and we know for a fact that you don't have to prove knowingly we are talking about a jurisdictional hook and so you could have some of these is really about what facts a defendant is presumed to know or at least be on notice of versus the type that should be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and there's a reason that we don't require in a case of statutory rape the government to prove that the defendant knew the victim was under the age of consent because even if he didn't know he was on notice it was incumbent upon him to find out and by the same token if you are an alien in the united states it is incumbent upon you to know whether you are here lawfully or unlawful you'd agree first of all i think that the immigration laws are kind of complex they are right and people can make mistakes absolutely no doubt like the dreamers we talked about it for example dr seconds whatever you'd also i think agree and be that there's language before you get to the newmans rail before the reasonable cause that that the knowingly from twenty four could attach to their own ok all right so why why shouldn't knowingly attach the first substantive element that comes across injury because it's contained in a separate provision which means that you don't have the same distributive language presumption that you would have if you are not and it was terrible at the very first substantive element so i don't think anything about petitioners argument would change if it said anyone possessing a gun at that traveled in interstate commerce who is an alien unlawfully in the united states i don't think the order matters for that or that it matters to you because you admit it attaches to the second substantive because it's conduct not because it's the second one well the status is a part product of conduct isn't it i don't want is an illegal alien because of one's conduct one is a felon because of one's conduct these are not immutable characteristics that is true but i don't think it means that having been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year necessarily means that being punishable by more than one year is your status something of which naturally you wouldn't normally people be aware the degree that you have most of these cases are going to be able to resolve by plea agreement i think that's right you made a point about congress and statutes use different kinds of mens rea and different sections and that's the whole point right congress is all over the place on terms of mens rea old so that it's new statutes and that's why this court for a long time has started with a presumption of mens rea a for every element of the offense congress can override that but the presumption exists for all the elements whether congress put in a prison men's room for one element there are three others or whether congress put in no mens rea at all we apply the men's wear is that a correct statement of a law that is and let me give you another example of textual clue that congress didn't want to require knowledge of status here there are two instances only two that we're aware of where someone actually might not reasonably know where congress might worry that they wouldn't reasonably know their own status and congress was explicit for both of them in its treatment the first one is subsection g eight which applies to someone who subject to a restraining order which you might not know because s restraining orders are issued ex parte and so congress specified in g eight that the restraining order has to have been issued quote after hearing of which such person received actual notice and at which such person had the opportunity to participate the other example is someone who subject to an indictment one court pointed out that a lot of indictments are under seal and so you wouldn't necessarily know that so congress took the indictment language put it into its own subsection subsection n and imposed a willfulness requirement that a person  old and they've never told him anything about being brought here when he was two years old he's lived in austin texas he knows that no you see i can i really am but by this think of many other examples besides that indictment and absolutely we can but you know congress normally legislates with the haystack in mind not the needle that's why so have we not that's perhaps why courts tend to read into silent language men's in categories eight x y z in c the greatest on errors in the lesser on a person so forth goes to jail for fifteen years i just thought of that because it seems to me incredible that a person who had no idea what category this medal was in would suddenly be charged with no age of that legal fact so it's not hard i think if you have more time to think of tremendous unfairness but can exist we can come up with hypotheticals but again the question is whether congress had any reason to redesign the way that firearm prosecutions had always worked in every court of appeals around the country out of concern for category of cases that if it exists at all is vanishingly small talk about this this part of history as if it were handed to us on tablets but the that the only part of history i'm aware of really is that for circuit opinion  caps and it seems to rely on a very convoluted parsing of the legislative history of a predecessor statute that's what the holdings of the courts of appeals on your side all rest on at the end of the day and that's a mode of interpretation that's not exactly preeminent today that's and even for those of us who do attend carefully the legislative history it's the legislative history of  prior statute that's been superseded and i don't know many of us who think that is enough to overcome clear language of the present statute was told to do about that we have made a textual argument that does not rely on the arguments that appear in those four circular enough but you just told us that we should be careful about undoing the careful work of the courts of appeals for the last fifty years but if it all hinges on a terrible mistake that argument seems to me may have other arguments that one doesn't seem a very good one i'm sorry i was making a different point i'm sorry if i was unclear about it my point was in one nine hundred eighty six there had been a national consensus every court of appeals to consider the issue had held that there was no knowledge of status required presumably if congress wanted to revolutionize the way that the one of the most frequently prosecuted federal crimes worked it would have been a whole lot clearer as it was congress did something and focus that every court of appeals interpreted as leaving in place the underlying rule if we could turn briefly to the practical consequences of this decision mr didden before you do that sorry do you think that there's a difference between a jurisdictional element and the status of women like this one i think it's not a difference in kind i think it goes to the point that justice alito is making namely that there are some things that we presume people either are aware of or on notice of or it's just not the type of thing that congress would want to have to prove to a jury and there are other things that congress would assume that we would prove to a jury we're argument is that legal status is the type of thing especially the defendant's own legal status that congress would not have the and to require and that becomes even clearer when you see that every time in nine twenty two that congress wants to require proof of some mental state with respect to the legal status it is explicit about it we've mentioned subsections de subsection and eight a six we've talked about subsection and we've talked about g eight those are all instances where congress might have worried that someone wouldn't know for instance the status of the person you're selling the gun to and that's why congress included in explicit mental state it did not include the same  jurisdictional elements seems to me must rest on an inference about congressional intent and the argument against reaching a similar inference with respect to a defendant's status is that in a case like this one can conduct in question would often not be criminal were not for the person status i think it's an overstatement to say that it's it's always lawful activity at penns on jurisdiction but in any event so can they can it be distinguished on that ground or would we run into problems in the situation where the conduct in question is subject to prosecution under state law and federal law but with the jurisdictional element does is to make it much more serious to impose a much more serious penalty so i'm not sure it can be distinguished on those grounds i'm glad that you brought up state law because we've been talking about federal law here but nearly every state has its own possession law and as far as we're aware not a single one of them requires proof that the defendant had any mental state with respect to their status which i think is relevant in two ways first of all it shows that this is unlikely it is unlikely that states would have structured all of their laws this way if it invited abuse or routinely ensnared the innocent but i think it also goes to what is the general expectation of what someone who is on notice of and i think it shows that if all states are making the same assumption that a defendant is on notice of his own status it's not unreasonable to think that congress was resting on the same assumption going now to the practical problem justice course if you are one hundred percent correct that in the vast majority of cases people plead guilty on the other hand we're talking about about ten thousand felon in possession offenses and what happens is although it will be extraordinarily rare that if defendant in fact will not know that he is of his own status it is something that will have to be proven at every trial which means that the focus of the trial back act that will be the last thing in the world that they give him one is for the jury you know that he committed them so that will often be the case it won't always be the case it's the easiest thing in the world for a defendant to say i just didn't know or even if i did know at one point that my crime was punishable by more than one year i forgot imagine a defendant who received a ten month sentence a journalist i don't believe that sometimes they do sometimes they don't well i mean if you've got a ridiculous  france it's not going to work it's not ridiculous for defendant who let's say five years after his prior offense for which he received a ten month sentence to say at the time of my later gun possession is just not something that i remembered because i only got ten months so i wasn't thinking about the potential so we were doing a two class of cases that if i understand your one is it's going to be easy to prove in the mine right of cases it's not a big deal but there is a small but significant number of cases where she it's really going to be a colorable question and therefore a burden on the government are seems to me a double edged sword isn't so our argument is not that it's a burden on the government sometimes it will be but usually it won't and in any event we're not asking for your sympathy our point is that you risk shifting the focus of all felon possession trials out of reach out of concern for a category of cases that if they exist is extraordinarily smart it does seem like you're asking for our sympathy with all respect you are referring to burden to yes your argument you say you want to get into the practical consequences the burden on the government and then not dismissed most of them is not burdensome at all and now we're left with these so again the problem is not the burden on the government imagine you are a juror at a felony  consequence argument then if it isn't a burden on the government it's that it will be deeply confusing to the jury so i imagine you are julie kids you know worried about considering a person who didn't know he was brought here at the age of two ok i am that's the case i'm imagining because i imagine our criminal justice system is aimed at proving the guilt or innocence of each individual and it doesn't help to say there are a lot of other people who are guilty this one didn't know he overstayed his visa you know what fairness so what purpose is it served to send that person to prison for ten years respectfully just as fire if you reinterpret the mens rea for every nine twenty two g offense out of concern for that hypothetical category of people that is worse than letting the tail wag the dog that's letting the tail wag the dog where the dog is massive and the tail is lawyers all start talking about a prior crime totally unrelated and under the best of circumstances that sort of trial within a trial can be deeply confusing deeply confusing for a jury and we just shouldn't trust juries even though it's a shrine of the cust and that every people are now serving time in federal prison under the felon possessions well given that it's about eight nine ten thousand a year it's going to be a very high number if i could because my more and more set itself  charge was converting government property and the defendant's argument was i didn't think it was government property because i thought it was abandoned but no the government there are you who cares doesn't matter if you thought it was abandoned and justice jackson solve the problem because that and why is it different from this case they are the abandoned property here you're to know your status because here we're talking not just about a legal status but the defendant's own legal status something of which he presumably is aware or at least is charged with being aware what a defendant can't do is say i don't remember when my visa was going to expire and you know what i'm not going to bother to figure out because as long as i remain ignorant even recklessly ignorant about my own status that means that i can't face liability if i could just tie together the various strands of architectural argument it is first that you are separating out knowingly violates from the regulatory prohibition which this court has read to mean that it's an reference to the specific acts or omissions that violate the prohibition to the fact that you're dealing with the defendant's own legal status three the fact that knowingly violates if you import the knowing requirement produces all sorts of doubled mental states were incompatible mental states under subsections d age and a sex for the fact that congress was always explicit in one thousand and two when it wanted to require a particular mental state with respect to background circumstances and five in the two instances where congress thought that maybe someone reasonably wouldn't be on notice of their status it made specific provision of those all of that combined with the fifty year history that congress had at its fingertips when it enact it folk in one thousand nine hundred six moreover the fact that if congress had a problem with the way every court of appeals in the country has interpreted focus presumably it would have done something about that in the last thirty years and yet even though nine twenty two in one thousand and four have been modified more than a dozen times congress has not done so so the government's view is that under balsillie the defendant would have to show on collateral review that he was actually innocent meaning he actually did not know about his status but of course any defendant could raise that argument and would have every incentive try and raise that argument thank you counsel six minutes  first i'd just like to point out i think that ten thousand a year prosecutions for the under the statute is somewhat overstated in that the sentencing commission has indicated in the past fifteen years there's only been sixty five thousand but regardless the bulk of them are under the felon in possession and we acknowledge that the bulk of the time there's not going to be a problem but that small but significant number of cases there is a essence the government says it's not ass adding complaining of its burden but rather is concerned about the added burden on the jury in the jury confusion but virtually every statute has knowledge sorts it out that's what they do the government is in effect asking this court to create a whole new role a rule that relieves it of its burden to prove the only critical fact that makes firearm possession in this country illegal and that fact the status our reading flying it to the status is consistent with the plain language of the statute with the court's canons of stretched reconstruction and with the purpose of folk inserting knowledge in the first place congress did something different prior to focus knowledge was not in the statute it's there now the fact that other congresses afterwards have not changed it at