when he did so he filled out all the required federal paperwork providing his own name and identifying information and passing a background check he then travel to his uncle's home in pennsylvania and delivered the firearm to a licensed gun dealer there that gun dealer required branscum uncle to fill out the exact same federal paperwork and passed his own background check before taking possession of the firearm but despite doing precisely what congress established as the process to buy a firearm intending to sell or give it to a lawful gun owner in another state the government charged mr branscum with falsely stating that he was the actual buyer of the firearm when he acquired and that term oh it will happen if two people walk into the gun circumstance where there are two lawful gun owners that is permissible i think a good way to illustrate that is to consider the government's concession that in the hypothetical if two people walked into the gun store and the person looked and said i'd like that gun and points to the like to buy that firearm that the person indicated i'm going to give it to that person then even the government concedes that in that circumstance everything about that sales perfectly lawful and the part the buyer could take done hand it to that person standing next to them who would leave the gun store with the gun dealer and the government having absolutely no idea who that person is or where the gun is going you're saying that in that case the gun dealer runs the background check on the person who hands the gun deal the credit card as opposed to the person who will be the actual recipient of the gun is that what you're saying the statute requires that's correct your honor i think the government concedes that as well in the gift circumstance at least and there's certainly nothing in the gun control that suggests that congress was this thing wishing between those two circumstance well in the gift in the gift situation but congress requires certain information from the buyer whatever that means right this minute the dealer has to record the name of the buyer right and the address of the buyer and do an instant check on the buyer now why would why would this congress have wanted those things with respect to the person who is just the straw purchaser not the person who the person who's actually going to acquire the weapon the reason your honor is that this legislation the way congress designed it is not focused on sort of the end point it's not concerned about where the gun is actually going  alternately going to receive it what congress was concerned about was the starting point because it's part of the keep political compromise of the gun control act there were two competing interests that need to be a comedy why would they be concerned about the starting point let's say there's a man mr mr  straw and he holds himself out as a gun buyers he puts you know a website he creates a website he has something in the yellow pages under straw man and he says you want to acquire a gun and you don't want the the dealer to record your name and you don't want to have an instant check on you you come to me and so these people come to him and whenever they do he goes to joe's gun shop and with that with the other person he says i want to buy a gun but this fellow with me is going to do all the talking so the guy who's with him talks with joe about different types of guns costs and everything and after that stun the person who's done all the talking says now my friend mr straw is going to first point about why why starting points the reason is because all that congress wanted is to provide law enforcement with a way to trace fire if you have truthful accurate information about the first initial purchase or the person who walks out of a gun store and got in their hand that law control and the condition was you get the buyer and you don't make the buyer promise not to give it to somebody else he could immediately give it to somebody who's unqualified to only gun couldn't he and would that be a violation that would that would violate other laws because congress and the farm owners protection act clarified that were or amended the provision to provide honor and i think the government's conceded that if it's someone in your own state there's it's own have to register it i don't have to go to a firearm dealer right it's my gun and i can give it to somebody else who's qualified that's correct your honor and in cases like mr branscum case where his uncle lived in another state congress provided a path for those people as well and that is you have to deliver the firearm to another dealer in that state before finishing the transfer but you never going to end user is once the gun is sold whether you take the you know the the straw buyers name or the or the other person's name or both you don't know where the guns going to end up to yes that's right and that's because that that was the key compromise  statute i mean i do believe that and here the look relevant language seems to me that it's material to the government says is the statute about selling or delivering now did this person was he the buyer your client was he somebody that they sold or delivered to well he's a straw a straw purchaser is someone who doesn't purchase the person who purchases is the person who the straw now you can't say that about a gift or a benefit a benefactor is is is the peer who is the beneficiary of the benefactor is not the purchaser but the straw purchaser is not the purchaser and it comes from straw bale where someone else put up a bale and it was called straw because the people who made a career of that used to wear a straw in their shoes interesting someone who is not the real so who is the real in this case it is the person for whom the straw purchase was we think that that within the language we can't get the beneficiary of the gift within the language and that's the reason for the distinction and so why not do it that way which specter i think that the principle you described of straw man or straw purchases in the context of context you described it i don't believe is a criminal context and we've not been able to find any case in which the criminal law has ever recognized that sort of civil agency law principle that when there is a principle agent relationship this fiduciary duty that because the principle controls the agent or the straw man that everything that the agent does is really an act of the principal and congress there were historically criminal common law principles of agency and congress codified those principles in title eighteen united states code section two those are things like aiding and abetting principles accessories that's not the principle on which the government relies a today the government still have not explained what purpose is served by obtaining the name of the straw purchaser and doing an instant check on the straw purchaser you said that it allows the tracing of the weapon but that's not going to be true in the case of a straw purchaser because the person who the straw purchaser isn't necessarily and probably in the vast majority of cases isn't going to get the name or any information about the actual recipient that's the whole purpose of having a straw purchaser so then what purpose is served by this is just meaningless with specter i disagree and i think the reason is again that the intent of congress and the gun control act was not trace or track or fire we're going and so in every case because private sales have no record keeping or background check required in every case where there's a trace of a firearm the government has to go all the way back to the beginning they go to the manufacturer with the serial number and follow the gun through the shooting of congress until they he came you know he contacted me i didn't ask his name he didn't give me his name and that's the end of it so no purpose is served by putting down the name the address doing the check on the straw purchaser you're but you're again congress understood that that's how the statute work because for example what you're saying is they did a meaningless thing that was the compromise they would do something that's utterly meaningless no your honor the reason is consider for example circumstance where instead of buying a farm with intent to resell five minutes after the purchase walking out of the gun store a stranger approaches you and says that's a nice looking gun i'd like to buy it from you it's perfectly legal under the gun control act to sell the gun to that stranger who then will even again in the tracing process the government's trace will stop with that first purchaser and congress understood that that's how the process would work and that was part of the compromise what congress wanted was accurate information about the initial person who acquires the firearm so at least they can try to do that for if congress understood that in name and then the uncle would say you know where else the firearm went from him yes your honor in fact in this case the government received all the record keeping and background check information that they could possibly have received a full federal paperwork from both branch the and his uncle and ran a background check on your position is that this is not a material misstatement is that correct yes around why it is not material in light of the fact that it was of question acknowledges that the statements on the form are just an interpretive rule and not even that sort of ordinary interpretive rule that this court may encounter with agency interpretations where where they're looking at the statute and although they have not been delegated with authority to r be and the government suggesting that this court should somehow defer to the statement on the form that it has the power of lot of people should acknowledge it but of course you have a case law question like this where there's a split this court is the authority that decides what the law should be and it's not required to defer at all to the statements on the form and you're mr do we go back to the question that justice alito raised the the primary object of the statute is to keep guns out of the hands of felons of people with mental illness and so forth now it's absolutely true as you have said that congress didn't do everything it could have to achieve that result right that there are many kinds of resales that are allowable that there are gifts that are allowable it's one thing to say that it's another thing to say that at the initial point of sale which is where the entire system is set up right with the gun dealer doing the automatic checks that at that initial point of sale which is the centerpiece of this statute that we will you that we will essentially disregard fronts that we you know that we don't care that the person standing at the counter is a front i mean that those far beyond the other kinds of resale possibilities that you're talking about and i guess what i want to know is why you think a congress that was geared towards this object of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people and set up a a private transaction the team between two private citizen and congress did not want any regulation of those types of sales and that was part of the political compromise in the law and so yes tried knowledge that would certainly describe this as a not a comprehensive regime there are holes in the legislation but remember too that congress was not operating in a vacuum it understood that although there may not be a national consensus about some of these issues and therefore the regime that congress chose may have holes in it that the states could fill those holes if there was a state wide consensus on that issue and many states have done that some states have a wife for example what is really a complete gun registration system and others like west virginia believe that there should be virtually no regulation of these sorts of private sales at all and so i think the system is working precisely as congress intended and if there are problems congress will come back and fix it and we've seen for example in the firearm owners protection act in the brady act that congress is an area where congress is continuing to observe what's going on in the nation and making changes to the laws in this situation the justice alito hypothesised of the person who's doing this several times a month and as the ad in the yellow pages is that is that person subject to regulation as a dealer yes i want to make that point and that is that of course if you engage in the business of purchasing firearms to sell to others then you you will at some point be subject to the licensing requirements that congress created so again this is not a system that has an obvious loophole where people can begin to engage in their own sort of sale of guns to others this is a situation where congress wanted to leave open the option for private citizens like mr branscum to purchase guns and that right if he's in on this and with respect i disagree it's true that he could not have walked into the gun store and left the gun store in virginia with with the gun but he could have purchased it there congress created a means in the statute for the gun to then be shipped to a gun buyers one is to physically be present at the gun store and fill out the papers yourself for the gun dealer as you were writing your name and age and your height and i color on the forms there's a person there looking that there was also an option that congress provided for people to purchase a gun for example by telephone or mail or over the internet without ever actually being present with no person being present in the gun store and it was in that circumstance that congress said we think we need a little bit more recordkeeping in those cases so that's why they require the affidavit for example in the waiting period to provide extra time for local law enforcement the background check but that's not the situation here mr branch was physically present at the gun store and so that provision of the person who sends in the straw man so that it's only is information that you have to give are there to buyers you know i don't know the government's position but you know our position is that there is one buyer that's the person who's actually paying for the gun filling out the forms undergoing a background check and leaving the gun leaving the gun store with a gun in their hand and congress didn't use terms like true buyer to purchase their actual wajir because they are not concerned about the ultimate recipients of firearms or what happens to  gun after it leaves the gun store the focus of the gun control act is on that initial purchase and making sure that that perch with its position are you taking here are you arguing that it doesn't matter whether it's a straw purchaser or buyer it's the person who puts the money down on the counter or you were arguing as of as a backup or as your main point i don't understand that if it's a law is to sell it to a prohibited person that's correct your honor and and in those circumstances again i think this is an important point is that congress provided a number of means to prosecute illegal straw purchasers and all of those provisions are still available to the government even if this court was to disapprove the straw purchaser doctrine in in all its applications if we disagree with you on the first point about the straw purchaser would you know would you lose on the grounds that  mr abram ski's uncle could not of lawfully purchased the gun at that store because he wasn't a resident of the state no your honor in two points there first as i mentioned it would have been possible for mr brand to purchase the gun in virginia he could have gone to that gun store and say this is the gun i want to pay the money he would have had to go back at the gun would have been shipped to pennsylvania and he would have had to take the session up in pennsylvania after filling out the paperwork he couldn't have taken possession of it and in pennsylvania in virginia that's correct but again i don't think that that changes the materiality analysis because again the question is not whether mr a branch his uncle could have picked up or bought the gun in virginia the question is if mr branscum had told the gun dealer gun walks out of the store that would that be a lawful sale no you are no mr banks uncle could not take that could not have bought a gun in another state taking possession of it but again the materiality question the way this court has described that standard  dealers store so we can fill out the necessary forms would the government then have objected to what happened here got i mean we can ask the government justice really indicate but and if you understand the case yes ron i think the reason is that the government's position is that you cannot buy a gun intending to sell it to another lawful gun owner that is the government's position but just one point of clarification is the extent relevant mr which is the one we have more trouble with to tell you the truth count two that's wrong and that count the language of congress was that one cannot make a false statement about were fired by this three things the name age in place of residence of the person acquiring the gun from the gun dealer and then a t f has promulgated regulations that have added an additional layer of information that must be  questions that the government has no no technical right to answer i mean let's assume i agree with you that in fact this information it was the government was not authorized to obtain this information and therefore it was not required to be kept but nonetheless they asked and your client didn't didn't just say i will not answer he lied now can can can you why so long as the question is improper and i think the key in this case is that congress included a materiality element for almost every false statement that would occur in this context and they acted a separate statute that did not have that materiality requirement and the reason was congress wanted to be sure that that provision that did not have the materiality acquirement only applied to the false statements that congress thought for the very important ones and therefore they delineated what those that category of statements was i take that actually as a falsity he's saying when i answered that i was the purchaser that was a true statement because i'm the only purchaser who counted for purposes of the statute was i was the one standing there and i was the one filling out before his second argument is an alternative argument as i understand it and he says even assuming i'm wrong about the first argument and that the statement was false that also it was not material because my uncle was legally eligible to possess a firearm so i'd like to take those two arguments  in order for the first or there to buy in your view i think in a sense there if you could understand their duty to buyers the buyer who counts under the statute though is the actual buyer what does what does the  person who's buying for somebody else he asks provide both names or just the name of the real buyer justice scalia if if you are hypothesize a situation in which two roommates wanted to buy a firearm together firearms are expensive they can't each afford their own but they want one for personal protection and if one went into the store and said i'm buying this firearm for myself and my roommate who is not here that transaction could not lawfully go forward because the two buyers of the of the firearm weren't in the store and they weren't physically present and they didn't go through all the all the statutory scheme and both of them had to take possession right right in that sense right right because the whole that's not the case here that the person who paid t possession was authorized to take possession in the straw purchaser cases the person takes possession in an ephemeral sense they are merely the conduit that the whole purpose and effect of the trend action is to deliver that firearm or someone else who the real buyer is and it's a four it's a substance over form inquiry and we think this is supported by not only the tax but also the structure and purpose of the gun control act where we're in the act does is the basis for the requirement on the fore the form says you know if you're not the actual for you're buying for somebody else on the winner is that in the statute that is a that is a a t f reasonable interpretation of the statute and i was just going to get to that it have a different one that's current one and that's been consistent for the last twenty years justice scalia so the state the statute we think both the text and the structure and purpose support this view the text is is most readily identifiable in section one twenty two  which this court in huddleston eight states six nine twenty two a six which is the count count one of the conviction it's the false statement provision at issue here and this is quoted at pages one through two of the government's  this provision says it shall be unlawful for any person in connection with the acquisition or attempted acquisition of a firearm and it goes on and it talked in it at the end it talks about the lawfulness of the sale or other disposition of such firearm this case isn't the first one which the court has had occasion to interpret those terms in huddleston the court looked at those terms in particular acquisition and disposition and it said several things about those terms that are relevant here it said those terms are meant to have a practical common sense meaning in terms of who will become into possession and control of a firearm as the result of a transaction with a federally regulated dealer and they don't turn on formal notions of legal title hydel and that with respect to disposition in particular that it was that congress meant to give broad effect to this term and so we think that the same kind of practical common sense inquiry is a plausible here when looking at the transaction the question is what is the ultimate purpose and effect of this transaction is it to to have someone else acquire the firearm before you wrote it isn't the language his point is that i think that the statute it has to be material to the lawfulness of the sale now we look to see what section is that material and you say in your brief it's material to the section that says you have two of them but they come to the same thing soling or delivering any firearm to any person right now he says did they sell or deliver this far arm to what you call the real purchaser there's no they sold or delivered it to the straw and that's the end of the matter and at least the statute is open to this interpretation and it's a criminal statute and b five besides the a t f for a long time deter put it that way so what we should do is interpret it strictly that's i think the basis of their argument if i understand it and so you have to get those words sale and deliver and explain how in the criminal statute they apply to what you're calling the real purchaser right just by the statute uses a number of different what we take to be a substance over form inquiry into the actual possession and control of a firearm so one twenty two a six as we were just talking about it talks about acquisition sale or disposition if you also  it to be material to the lawfulness of the sale seem to concede that in the brief he has serial and there and there are two sections and both come to the same thing which is what i said so this is this where we get back to the fact that there are two different issues in this case if i convince you that there was a false statement here because petitioners uncle was the actual purchaser if he was if he then if he is the actual purchaser then he falls within the term of the person to whom the foreign was sold or delivered sure and his name wasn't put on the form there's no question right so if i could just finish one other thought on this first issue a falsity and as justice sotomayor in just a hypotheticals demonstrated under petitioners view of the statute i could approach someone in the parking lot outside of a licensed dealer i could say would you like to make a quick buck he's coming with me i could point to the firearm i want i could hand him the money i could look over his shoulder as he fills out form forty four seventy three in his own name i could watch the dealer run that person's name and identity through the criminal background check and as we leave the shop together he could hand me that firearm it any more horrible than the notion that as soon as i buy it i walk out of the store and i meet this guy in the parking lot he says hey that's a nifty looking gun there how much did you pay for it says you know i paid six hundred dollars i'll give you seven hundred  it's yours but i can he had to get it you could just as kill your social saw the notion that the gun would somehow get into the hands of somebody who you know who wasn't registered or who couldn't buy it himself i mean that's going to happen anyway this is what what you assert does not stop that problem justice scalia that congress was obviously balancing a number of interest when it acted these provisions if you read the text of the statute in the legislative history it's clear that congress thought the principle problem was effectively unregulated sales of firearms from dealers that's the problem it wanted to focus on and you're right that it didn't want to go further and intrude on private transactions among unlicensed in the words read it one way and then that's right justice ginsburg and i think that takes us to the second issue here which is the materiality issue and i think what happened was that the agency's earlier view of the statute was essentially overtaken by the case law in several respects and the car and the agency therefore updated view and has consistently applied that you for the last twenty years but still what i thought was a very good argument on your side is exactly what i said the narrow interpretation would also apply to a straw man who buys a gun for al capone and so this was this this part of the statute would be virtually worthless their response to that is don't worry about that there are plenty of other provisions that will take care of that are there and if it's so obvious about the capone why did the a t f decide it their way for twenty years i mean how how did they get into that just by i think that the other provisions that petitioners referring to is nine twenty two d which makes it on lawful for anyone licensed or unlicensed to transfer a firearm to someone in a prohibited category if the transfer or knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the person is in a pretty category and that is completely inadequate substitute for what the kind of regulation we're talking here for of for a variety of reasons one is the mens rea requirement that i just mentioned so in my my hypothetical involving the parking lot the person the straw purchaser doesn't even know my name much less anything about my background whether i was dishonorably discharged from the military whether i had mental health issues doesn't know anything about me he has no reason to ask i certainly have no motivation to tell him and yet that transaction can go forward and this could be it would be very difficult to prosecute that straw purchaser for  illegal transfer if it turned out that i was a felon second is the whole purpose of this structure of the statute especially after it was amended in the early ninety's was to not was to put in place and reinforce a dealer based regulatory system in which the eligibility of firearm transfer were the furries is determined based on a search through a database we don't take the even the trance for transferee say so as to whether or not he's an eligible person hint it's a lottery or very problematic to talk about the overriding purpose when you're dealing with a very sensitive compromise there's as far as i can tell nothing in the language of the statute that talks about straw men or actual buyers or anything like that a broad construction of that provision this language is fought over tooth and nail by people on the you know gun control side in the gun ownership side and to say you look at it and say well the purpose is this even though there's no words in the statute that have anything to do with straw purchasers i think it's very problematic what you want i think we do have a textual ardent which i referred to before but with there's also it's not just a purpose argument it's a context rule and structural argument and it's the one that justice alito alluded to he doesn't have he doesn't put it in the yellow pages and he doesn't put it on the internet he just hangs around in the parking lot of joes to accommodate people who and joes is near the border and he wants to accommodate people who may take it they wish to  employ him as a straw purchaser you wouldn't think of prosecuting him would you i mean at a certain point if it because if the if the conduct is so pervasive and regular if he's acting as a dealer then you might be able to get him on that separate provision but you're right before that point you wouldn't necessarily be able to and that would be a perfectly lawful lawful conduct and it's also important to talk we were talking just a fire about it before you go on i want to get back to the al capone hypothetical as i understand petitioner's case here he i don't think he's asserting that if al capone if he intended to transfer to al capone that his statement would not have been material regarding you can even he might be prosecuted under another statute for selling something to somebody he knows as al capone but that that he would be because he was the guy at the counter and he was by and for somebody else as to this question of material representation it does not matter whether the ultimate transfer rate was al capone or somebody else i think that's right justice kagan that's his first argument and why had to be his main submission is essentially that his statement was true i think he said that just right right up here it was true so you don't even get to the materiality question so that's right that subsequent transfer might separately be a violation if he knows or has reasonable cause to i'm sorry transferees applied only to licensed dealers until one thousand nine hundred six it didn't apply to two private individuals so the kind of straw purchase on behalf of al capone as i understand it under petitioners would've been perfectly legal from one nine hundred sixty eight to one hundred eighty six even if it was knowing justice ginsburg we talked a little bit before about how a t f of you kind of caught up with the case law and i think some of that case law is actually quite helpful here for illuminating the materiality question and it's the crandall case from the first circuit that we talk about in the brief if petitioner is correct that the materiality of a false statement turns on whether the ultimate in this context whether the ultimate purchaser of the actual transfer of the firearm was eligible or not it's unclear why a pitch by someone seeking to buy a gun from a federally regulated dealer couldn't go in provide a false name and provide false identification and receive a gun and then if he's prosecuted for that false statement he could defend as the defendant and crandell tried to defend saying well it didn't really matter because i'm actually eligible so even if you'd known my true name and had my true forged id you would have sold me the gun so it's not material the courts of appeals in the lower courts have consistently rejected that argument and what those court told is that in all cases the lawfulness of the sale of a firearm from a regulated dealer is contingent on the recording confirming and after one thousand nine hundred three screening of the identity of the purchaser in this this now you're talking about the second question correct and the provision that makes the the information that's required makes it material correct me if i'm wrong as is nine twenty to the five right that's one of the choir's vision that's ok now all that says is you have to keep the information of the person to whom you're transferring the firearms so your argument has to be when somebody sees the person they realize that that means not somebody who's buying it for somebody else right right and if you're with me on the straw purchase idea that this was a false statement because the purpose and effect of the transaction was to for the uncle to acquire the firearm then that was a false statement than the honestly as i know your name your if i assume you're right then you're right if you are right on issue one then i think the materiality on issue two follows directly from from this provision that you've quoted one twenty two p five and i think was then per person you know carries with it the concept of not just the person to whom it is transferred which is what nine twenty two b fi says but the fact that it's has to be the actual person who ends up with the gun yes and i think the term needs to be looked at in context not just one twenty two b five there's also nine twenty two key which is the brady provisions in the t this is quoted in relevant part on page thirteen of our brief so nine twenty two t says that the no transfer of a firearm can take place unless the identity of the transferee is confirmed with a photo identification and unless that identity is screened through a database to ensure that that person is ok i wonder if you know right on question one thousand nine hundred two t just makes this a slam dunk on question two and there is a question about whether you are right  question one but if you are t says look the dealer is supposed to check the transfer rate right and if we assume that when that when congress says the transferee it's the real transfer a not the fake transfer rate the dealer supposed to so what is the deal or think it's material i mean the question is what is a reasonable deal or think is material i better know who you are so i can show you that's material i think that's right justice kagan i think that anyone looking at nine twenty to be five justices chief justice roberts i can't look at all these things because they're not in your brief i really i really resent especially in statutory cases not having the statute in front of us i shouldn't have to flip through your brief just to see what page reason why is this name relevant why is this question being asked in this goes to justice alito is observation about the structure and purpose of the statute his name is clearly being asked because congress cared very much about preventing i'm not i'm a sales of firearms  cared very much about having a record of who that first fire was let's not just the structure and it's not just the the overriding purpose nine twenty two is to d t says that the dealer is supposed to check the transfer rate to find out whether the transfer has a criminal record to find out whether the transferee has mental illness so who does he check who is the transferee why i need to know who the transferee is to make that so obviously it's material to know who the transferee is i agree because those those requirements would be pointless if they could be satisfied as the going to be the same problem which is the straw because the transferrin contacts probably refers to the person to whom the dealer transferred the weapon namely the buyer and does it apply for example if he knows that the buyer is going to give the  is going to later transfer the weapon is the same question as to whether he is really the purchaser i just don't see a difference and therefore i thought would be you can explain to me why there's a difference like to know  couple points about this one as we talked about before we think huddleston suggest that these terms and huddleston was interpreted interpret ng acquisition and disposition and it gave it was stressed that the use had a practical common sense meaning about who was going to obtain possession or control of the firearm as a result of the transaction transaction as a direct result of the transaction what about the don't need the a t f has never interpreted this provision to to prohibit gifts and a gift recipient is no sense a party to the gift givers purchase of the gift that's just not the way we think of gifts the purchaser may change his mind the purchaser is not acting at the direction and control of the gift recipient and justice kennedy's question is is is this old contingent on the intent at the moment when you had a lovely wrecked case here because you had the money transferred before the purchaser so there's no question that the intent was to purchase for the overcoat but what about the situation where there's a conversation before hand that says i'm going to buy the gun and also it's e f two it's i think the question there could be a factual question in some of these cases the question would be was that purchase made on behalf of someone else there's no factual issue here this was a guilty plea so we have to assume that this transaction was made on behalf of the uncle as a factual matter petitioner disputes whether that matters legally or not and i'm not sure what you mean i gave you a hypothetical what what right and what has it in your hypothetical i think that would be a straw purchase that purchase was made even if the money was going to come later that purchase was made on behalf of the absent party and it can't proceed for a variety of reasons that this is a criminal s to there was a notice rule of lenity argument made there because the person in that case wasn't actually buying a firearm he had pawned it to the pont shop and he was redeeming it he came in and said i'm not buying it i'm just getting my own property back i'm not buying it or acquiring it and the court relied in rejecting that argument relied in part on form forty four seventy three because it provided notice that he had to check these boxes and had to truthfully answer the question i think it's rare that you get a case with this degree of notice when the when the defendant is actually committing the offense in making the false statement he's told in bold letters right in front of him not to do what he's about to do and it includes a hypothetical he's not told that in the statute he's told that in a form that was quite different from the form that was used before right chief justice roberts it's a form that's been used consistently for for twenty years and for the reasons that we've said we think that the the current view of the a t f and the express instructions on the form are actually the most consistent with the statute because the statu requires identification of a firearm purchaser to be recorded confirmed in screened in every case that's not contingent on the person turning out to be eligible or not for congress wanted to prevent anonymous sales of firearms well i'm not asking about that i think if the petitioner changed his mind and decided not to actually transfer it i think as a technical matter that wouldn't affect the legality because what mattered was was he making a purchase on behalf of another and entering a false statement at the time he made it a fact question could arise in a in a situation like that which defend it could argue i wasn't actually making the purchase on behalf of someone else and that argument is supported by subsequent events but i think we are i was about to say that  one critical purpose of the statute obviously was to keep firearms out of the hands of ineligible persons but another critical purpose was to allow for the tracing of firearms and to prevent the anonymous stockpiling of firearms and with respect to that purpose i think the facts of some of the cases underlying t split on the second issue of materiality are quite salient those are all cases in which eligible parties wanted to anonymously obtain large quantities of firearms for illicit reasons they were eligible but they had they wanted to not have their name associated with the transaction so polk which is the fifth circuit case which is actually an petitioner side that person wanted to a anonymously acquire firearms to create a stockpile to attack an i r s building to kill police officers and to assassinate a judge but he was eligible in frasier and morales which are the eleventh and six circuit cases addressing this materiality issue they were straw purchases on behalf of eligible buyers but they were again wanting to anonymously stockpile weapons and not have their names associated with them because they were smuggling them out of the country and the petitioners view of the statute in which a straw purchaser can satisfy the requirement that the first transaction at the point of sale be recorded would completely satisfy the statutory requirements would greatly ginsburg you asked counsel whether this was a case where there were two interpretations of the statute counsel seated that there were i think that's an important point because of course we're dealing with a criminal statute if there are two interpretations under very little precedent from this court of the court applies the interpretation that's favorable to the criminal defendant and that's part of the doctrine of criminal law justice kennedy you mentioned the the agency situation that existed here between mr abrams to his uncle and here it's important to note that there wasn't even any consideration this was truly a purchase it was just a favor for a family member in the government in order to advance the straw purchaser theory that stork came from civil common law there needs to be a relationship between mr a branch he and his uncle that is a fiduciary relationship where mr a branch he is required to act in his uncle's best interests at all times and that for example if he left the gun store and someone said hey did you just pick up a glock i'll buy it for you for five hundred dollars that mr branson could not even enter into that sale of how providing his uncle with it with any money he made from that sale there's there's a complex set of civil agency law principles that apply here it just don't translate straw purchaser doctrine as we described it and i think that's a fundamental flaw in the government's theory is that courts have never thought through all of the various situations that apply in these fiduciary relationships and how you would apply them to situations where you're just buying a gun for a family member or something of that nature i also want to turn to the gift exception there's also another exception the government acknowledges and that's for a raffles and contests at charities or political fundraisers and so in that circumstance the person who's buying the gun kno that they're giving it to a complete stranger and someone who by random chance wins the right to own the gun but in those cases the government says there's no need at the time that you buy a gun to take any steps to ensure there's recordkeeping or a background check on that person and i think that undermines this idea that everyone receiving a gun as it sits in the chain from the gun dealer congress wants to have a background check congress is concerned about providing enough information to allow for tracing and nothing more and as a final point your honor so i think perhaps the most important point is that in this case if the court rejects the straw purchaser doctrine as it as it applies in this case to a lawful gun owner buying for another there are really no harmful consequences the government retains a very robust tool box of criminal statutes prosecute illegal straw purchasers those who buy guns to get them into the hands of prohibited persons and the government will receive accurate truthful information about that first sale so they can trace firearms when they're used in the commission of a crime so the only thing  in this case really accomplishes is to prohibit a law abiding citizens from buying guns for other law abiding citizens and that's something that congress expressly chose not to do and we've asked this court to remain faithful to the statutory scheme actually  we agreed with you on the on the second argument would the government have to prove that the person to whom the straw purchaser transferred the gun was ineligible or would it be a defense if it was shown that the person was eligible i think the governor would have the burden there your honor and i think the government suggested they provide an example of a circumstance where the person who bought the gun was buying it for someone named i believe they had no idea who that was but yes in that circumstance the government would need to prove that that person was prohibited but i think in circumstances like that where you're buying guns for someone you don't even know who that person is the government may well have evidence in that case that you either knew or had reasonable cause to believe that that person was prohibited from possessing a gun the other purpose that they said this provision has is to get gun dealers to run checks and you can't run a check at the name isn't there that's right running of course you can't run a check on someone who wins the gun in a