firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime so the burden was on the government to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that not only did mr bank possessed the gun but that he did so with the intent to advance or help forward their crimes the law was very clear that possession of a gun in the vicinity of a drug crime is alone not sufficient rather they're asked to be a factual nexus between the gun and the crime the evidence here was insufficient st and foremost the evidence was clear that mr bank purchased this gun fleet farm for years before the drug conspiracy began so at the time that he purchased the gun the his initial possession was independent and unrelated to the crime which occurred forty years later and he purchased the gun legally and it was registered to him although he could have purchased a gun through a private sale by purchasing it from a federal federally licensed dealer the gun was registered in his name and was traceable to him and so the question then becomes whether at the time that the drug offense began a continued his possession of that gun to further this drug offense or simply because it was one of his possessions which he had had for the fo years as to that we know that the guy was not possessed me or the drugs or the bulk of the proceeds of the crime there were one thousand four hundred dollars found in the bedroom where the gun was located an additional twenty thousand dollars in cash and money orders in the basement two dollars floors down the marijuana which was being packaged by mr parents was also located two floors down there was no evidence that mr bang ever possessed the gun during a drug transaction and ever took it with him out of the house although the gun was in a hol ster the evidence was that holster was made to attach the weight belt no belt was seized by the authorities the evidence was that mr bangs steered customers that he was not familiar with away from his house he did not want to meet strangers at his house the customers that he dealt with regularly he had a trusting relationship with he did not display the gun or use it to intimidate customers even those who owed him twenty five thousand dollars we governments expert testified that a drug dealer will display a gun to send a message don't mess with me none of that happened in this case it is not enough for the government to show that a gun could hypothetically the silicate the crime it mr vang has to have intended it to do so now there are many many cases that a fur a further and it's probably the statute but here what we have is nothing more than a theoretical possibility that this gun could have facilitated the offense the lock has never been at a loaded gun in the same house as drugs is enough to establish the in furtherance prong and the if this conviction is sustained it basically reads the in furtherance prior out of the statute it's our position bad the government failed in its proof and we ask that the court reverse the conviction and count to with respect to count one the court made t errors in sentencing st bifocal mr bang pleaded guilty to the drug conspiracy in count one and stipulated to the fact that he had participated in a drug conspiracy at trial with respect to the gun he did not dispute that he possessed the gun the only issue was as i've discussed whether that possession was in further end is separate and apart from the guideline analysis it's a consecutive sentence to be determined independently in that situation where the defendant accept responsibility for the group the guidelines permit the court to grant acceptance of responsibility those counts notwithstanding the defendant's decision to go to trial ungrouped halves that is exactly what happened here walk free this court reversed the grant of acceptance of responsibility which i think the district court relied on improperly because the white tree facts are completely different from the facts in this case in what three the defendant did not i having his ask the gun which was found by police officer at the time of his arrest in his waistband perjured himself at  trial and then ultimately was convicted in our case mr paying it made it possession of the gun and mated involvement in the drug conspiracy pleaded guilty to the drug conspiracy the relevant conduct be in furtherance is not relevant conduct for the conspiracy only the possession of the gun is relevant conduct and mr vang went to extraordinary lengths to rehabilitate himself while he was awaiting trial and sentencing for those reasons it's our position that the district court misapplied the guidelines  off by saying that we owe the district court great deference in the decision that they make and then the court gets to make the fact findings about whether or not accept an appropriate in that those findings of fact that are necessary we would we would review for clear error and you know that the judge went through and it may be that you furtherance of a gun is part of the relevant conduct of count one that's not true that is not a factual issue the relevant conduct is did he possess a gun he  not true i think that it erred when it said that i've lost my train of thought that the government saving the government time at trial on an unrelated count but in any event mr vang stipulated to the fact of the conspiracy the government did not have to prove it there were three witnesses at trial one of whom was the expert the trial lasted a day and a half so the government certainly did not prove up a conspiracy so i think that was both a bac a legal error but we see this as a misapplication of three a one point one and in that the district court basically walk free just say rather than looking at the t circumstances in this situation where you go to trial on one count and not on the other you don't get acceptance of responsibility and i think that was the essence of the district court's holding with respect to the drug weight again there was no dispute about the facts there was a dispute about the analysis the district court and that based on a  s statement that every time he went there there was three hundred pounds of marijuana the district court said well if we take four and a half times and multiply that by three hundred pounds we get a big number the problem is that same three hundred pounds was the source of the drugs that were being sold which also added up to a big number and there was no evidence that the three hundred pounds was not the same three hundred pounds from the week before there was no evidence that mr bang each week exhausted his three hundred pounds and had a fresh three hundred pounds supply in fact the evidence was quite to the contrary bad when the government tried to set up a control mr bang went for months with no marijuana at all we think that the court's analysis yielded an unreliable result and that be appropriate guideline range with acceptance thousands of dollars worth of marijuana as the appellant stated the facts of this case are undisputed the question is whether driving all reasonable inferences in favor of the verdict a jury could find  testimony regarding the use of firearms in connection with drug trafficking as was the case here as to the close proximity to the drugs when police entered the home they found vang at the top of the pistol it was loaded with one in the chamber and at the bottom of the stairs his parents wearing blue latex clothes were packaging over twenty moving boxes filled with two hundred and ninety four course meant to transport it from minnesota back to iowa for prosecution and that's in the record at the trial transcript one hundred and sixty two this was not a pound of meth or an ounce of heroin which could have been stored in the bathroom along with dresser right next to a detailed drug ledger a nd drug ledger was located in a backpack in that room and a money counter was located in the closet and in addition to the large amount of drugs in the home again over two hundred thousand dollars worth there was over twenty thousand dollars in money orders and catch most of it was found in vang's mother's purse but again that one thousand four hundred dollars was in thing made a big deal of the basement but i do want to be clear the record established that this was a split level home when you walked and you walked up stairs to get to the main level and down stairs to get to the basement so this is not a level difference as he's describing a split level home as to whether or not this firearm was easily accessible it was next to him while he was sleeping it was loaded with one in the chamber and holster designed to be worn in the way spent this evidence combined with the expert one that occurs a close relationship between drugs and guns that self protection and protections of protection of drugs and proceeds is important given the risk of robberies that drug dealers often carry guns outside of the home during drug deals for protection although the firearm be concealed and that drug dealers typically keep  d our experts even demonstrate that the use of this particular holds holster how it is concealed inside of the ways based on the law that  actually not only the two hundred thousand dollars worth of marijuana itself but also proceeds and other tools i'd like to to said that he does not just any facts i would bring that he is correct in his brief at age thirty eight that the district court believed that the of the two hundred and ninety four dollars pounds that were recovered so there was no additional packaging but this misunderstanding of the facts was harmless error twenty five pounds of empty packaging doesn't tip the scale  and the evidence clearly showed that defendant was responsible for thousands of pounds of marijuana they just get a paragraph in the p s r paragraph seventeen which are trips that one of the coconspirators to receive marijuana paragraph twenty four dollars which is the total quantity that was recovered on the date of the search warrant two hundred and ninety six dollars pounds and then paragraph thirty two paragraphs seventeen the trips that mrs snyder took or per twenty four dollars the amount that was recovered at the time of the warrant the real dispute is whether or not the judge error by finding that  in her words she only had to find four and a half trips with a total of three hundred dollars pounds in order to get to that base offense level of thirty and drug dealers deal drugs to deal ultimately scored looking at the drug ledgers recovered in this case it's clear that st of all mason snyder isn't his only customer and nd of all i did the patch and just for the period of may to july actually the drug that mason snyder got six hundred and seventy nine so there is a vast underestimate that was scored in the p s r and the judge in making her conservative were two hundred poems a week that's correct that's in the p s r as well that was undisputed and that was that paragraph seventeen which corroborates that the estimate was a vast underestimate between that information the fact that law enforcement actually found almost three hundred dollars pounds at the time of the warrant and defendant's extensive drug ledgers there was more than enough corroborating evidence presented for the judge to of defendant's acceptance of responsibility as a consideration under both the one point that the government moves for and the two points add that the judge can grant the judge also did not air and making findings that was useful for protection moreover possessing the gun is relevant conduct and while then argues that he never just did that he possessed the firearm the government still has to show proof by palmer and the evidence accessible but the proof of the putting his what did he do with that quick accessibility the police in this case in executing the search for it broke down the door with a battering ram for the people inside bad house they had every reason to believe this was a home invasion the evidence suggested that mr bang was in his bed near the gun he went running out of the bedroom without the gun and stood in his underwear at the top of the stairs there's no indication that he had any impulse to grab his got so while it was quickly excessive well it was quickly accessible with drugs down in the basement he was up in the bedroom there's no evidence that he was acting as kiribati for this operation the government stresses the fact that this was a large amount of drugs for you know one pound of marijuana a one thousand what we are left with and we have the fact that mr vang while the search was being conducted openly admitted that's my pet room that's my god he understood that he was being prosecuted for drugs in the basement yet he did not think to himself this gun connects me to the drugs because in his own mind the two were not connected at all so at some point if the staff keep that promise that the statute are going to have meaning the government has to prove both possession of the gun and that it was  furtherance of the drug offense at some point we have to reach the outer limit of the point it can't be that possession alone is not enough but possession with a little conjecture is that is not the law what we have here is a loaded gun in the same house as some marijuana that is not sufficient but those reasons we asked the court to reverse the