scope of what those words and tail and there are two reasons why this court should reverse and remand for recent incident st what happened to the serial number in this case falls outside the court adopted of altered or obliterated in seconds this court should not place the policy purpose behind the guidelines ahead of the scope of the text itself what do you do with the st th th and t circuit your honor the circuit that the only circuit that contradicts our what we're asking for in this case is the night circuits holding in united states versus romero martin the facts of the case sir admitted lee indistinguishable however there is a serious concern about the reasoning of romero martinez they are just says here assess the plate bearing the serial number was removed from the firearm itself it's the only other case where we see that having happened what would you do with the th circuit card or the corridor i think united states versus carter does not conflict with what we're asking for in this case in fact supports what we're asking for in this case you say the same thing about st circuit sharam that's right your honor i think that is just just entirely apart so we have a series of cases here most of them deal with the so called one of the liberation of rule so you have multiple serial numbers on a firearm if only one is obliterated does the enhancement still apply those cases held yes we can see that today our point is instead that there's no serial number on this firearm that was obliterated or altered at all based on the facts of this case is described on pages one hundred and eleven in one  the record you know you don't think that removal of one firearm is an alteration it's an alteration of the firearm certainly but under the plain language of the enhancement this serial number has to be altered to a political road and not the firearm so the serial number is this such an it says and so only one needs to be altered or obliterated and we're certainly not disputing that or receiver not on the fly under the federal regulation and so once it's taken off of the frame a receiver but it doesn't matter whether it's also there on the slide it's that there were only concerned with the one on the frame well i think this court should be concerned with all of that i take your point if you remove the one from the frame it would be in violation of federal regulations in mr jones would be subject to indictment under nine hundred and twenty two dollars paid for example it's only required even to be it's just happenstance that it's on the fly that's right because if they did they didn't have to put it on the slide at all i agree or that's the premise what matters in the frame is what was what was altered or obliterated but not the serial number on the frame and i think that's an important it is the serial i mean once it's taken away well the relationship between the serial number in the frame was severed but it's our position that when the syncing commission says altered or obliterated it's intentionally not talking about a removed serial number it's talking about a serial number that was ground off or filed off in part in here's where i'm getting that from the united states versus carter before the th circuit in two thousand and five is kind of the case that's done the most to work on this issue this court then in united states versus president two thousand and nine adopted the reasoning of holding of united states versus carter what occurred or dead is it looked at the origin of this particular in hansoms in through looking at the enactment history came to the conclusion that in all likelihood this particular guidelines enhanced been derived from the statute found in eighteen u syncing commission omitted the word removed in under general principles of statutory construction when and into t whether congress or the sentencing commission make such a change it's considered an intentional change so the question here is why would they have done that it's what silly think they meant to remove the word for a movement that had some seminal thing and that opal iterate doesn't just income also encompass remove i really do your honor and i can't sign one dictionary says remove from existence is what obliterate means so it contains the word removed in the definition of the word obliterate that's your honor that's a correct your honor that's the same conclusion the th circuit reached but i don't think that's how language works in here's what i mean by that if we're looking at the dictionary definition scope of altered or obliterated with the th circuit did as they looked up those words and black's law in webster's in found within those definitions of the word removed and reached the conclusion that certainly then removed fits come from really within altered or obliterated the problem is is the way the word removed is being used in those definitions is very different from the way the word removed is operating under the nothingness here in this case we're talking about removed in the physical sense two separate physically and that has a very very different meaning so by analogy would be the difference in medical term between an amputation and the death of the same itself so existential removal is different from physical removal and you don't click that plea usually in the guideline of an altered remove not coming within literally that's correct your honor not only that but also the indication that when the sentencing commission if indeed the night circuit is correct that it derives from the th circuit well and i'm not i don't disagree with and i really change in a way that makes accurate information less accessible that's correct thank accurate information less successful isn't that fit here that part fits but the st half do materially changed the serial number in this case was not materially changed what was changed is the got firearms self in the relationship between the serial number and the firearm so by example  if the court would allow me a little bit of leeway here i have papers on the podium here if i were to lift them from the podium they would be removed from the podium but nothing about what's written on the papers themselves has been altered or obliterated only the relationship between the podium in the papers but i do want to come back to the question why would the sentencing commission omit the word removed when it took it from nine to twenty two k the guidelines do not answer that question so we're left to draw an inference the government and the defense draw two different inferences the government's inference is that the sentencing commission recognized that removed already falls within altered or obliterated therefore omitted the word removed the problem i have with that inference is it's injecting surplusage into the interpretation of the statute in order to expand the scope of the d provision and that goes squarely against general principles of statutory construction let me provide a competing reason why the sentencing commission may have chosen to do so one major difference between and twenty two k and this particular provision is nine hundred and twenty eight is the provision here by its own language is a strict liability oftens so it doesn't matter if you knew about the alteration or obliteration you're on the hook for the provision by contrast the statute is not strict liability in fact the government has to prove is an element that the defendant knew actually knew of the contraband nature of the firearm altered obliterated removed serial number it's possible that the when the sentencing commission brought it over when they decided to make it strict liability they decided to omit from culpability the one characteristic that a person by looking at the firearm might not actually know of in the night circuit in united states versus carter the court explained that it's appearances on the street that counts that's why we have the strict liability nature  we want when there's this downstream transaction just like we have in this case the person buying the firearm if they see an altered or obliterated serial number we want them to be discouraged from purchasing that firearm well that wouldn't be think we're talking about sophisticated gun people here we're not talking about an in our a hunter we're talking about typically a drug dealer who's purchasing a firearm for self protection and there's not you couldn't look at the firearm i wouldn't go through example how firearms work if i hadn't read these cases the record i assume doesn't show when this far the serial number was removed these of the when your client acquired the pistol that's correct your honor we do have some provenance of the gun here we know it is a ridge unaided in louisiana we know it was sold to our client purchased the firearm in the dallas area from another man and we don't know if it was removed in or was removed prior to the sale i would like to comment briefly on my nd point about the policy certainly courts have recognized the policy purpose for the guideline is to deter discourage untraceable weaponry i think there's another port that's gone too far on this and it's the th circuit in the united states versus a is where the court held that any firearm that's less traceable certainly would trigger this enhanced phones i think that goes beyond the language of the guidelines in my support for that is united states versus ceasing out of the th circuit in two thousand are a person actually manufactured their own silencer which never had a serial number that the district court said well this is less traceable so certainly the enhancement would apply the night circuit circuit correctly hel even though applying the enhancement would be consistent with the policy behind the and he has been provision here we can't go so far your argument doesn't relied on the fact the serial numbers on the side that's correct your argument is it could come it's like it's argument here is simply what happened to the firearm here falls outside the scope of altered or obliterated even though the relationship between the plate bearing the serial number of the firearm has changed even though the firearm itself was altered what we're talking about is the serial number in when the sentencing commission copied and pasted from nine hundred and twenty two k it alone needed the word removed and we have to give it meaning in value to that decision intent was in the commentary to the guidelines specifically note eight which says that it describes the offense of possessing a firearm with a remove serial number both in violation of one thousand and two k which my colleague cited in relation same as altered or obliterated so how did they leave out the word in yes why are we having to go to the commentary the most reasonable interpretation of that commentary is why did they leave it out the commentary is supportive and i understand that we sometimes do consider the commentary unlike some some of us may not consider legislative history but we do consider godling commentary i think but why would they leave it out because it's completely encompass when obliterated or alter it it's not his example about the death in their pew taishan and you remove the piece of paper the paper still exist in an existential way i mean it's a it's this is in an interesting kind of philosophical argument about the gun serial number but why isn't that true was the one rd it explained when i went through several definitions for obliterated one of the several of them include the word removed in webster's but were removed in this context means wiped out from existence whereas this just means taken away from right it also includes certain from significance in the card to disappear or remove that's on webster's and here once you remove the serial number plate from the frame even if you could do it in such a way that the number of the physical number on the plate is kept intact you have maturely change the serial number by destroying the very quality that makes it a serial number in this case the serial number that was removed was only a separate piece of metal that's correct it wasn't just scratched out it was physically removed  well i think i think the frame of the gun is like a polymer kind of plastic but yes it separated the metal plate which has the serial number from the frame and if you look at the pictures that were submitted to the court you can see where that frame or where that metal plate information less accessible and completely removing the serial number from the frame of the weapon certainly counts as a material change that makes accurate information less accessible even the other part right that's correct and  given that the focus of the enhancement is whether or not the action in question makes accurate information less accessible it simply can't be the case that the commission intended to include scratched out serial numbers that can ultimately be recovered via forensic analysis the to exclude from the enhancement those serial numbers that are completely removed so that there's no amount of forensic analysis using a microscope or a chemical solvent is going to be able to recover that serial number that's a practical argument and i still don't know that you've answered this this was not obliterated in the way that we understand the word obliterated to be wiped out to cease to exist  can you answer that question are you saying it bits under obliterated or are you saying if it's under altar yes your honor i think it fits under obliterated on how obliterate it is defined in the ordinary meaning when we look at dictionary definition but i haven't heard you say in dictionary definition that it would fit under two to prove in that context means to cease to exist that's one definition to also is to remove from significance and if you're moving a serial number from what the product that is designed to identify that number no longer has any significance you've completely removed it is just a number standing by itself it has no value as a serial number in fact it's probably not even a serial number anymore it's just a number standing by itself on a metal plate that i'd identify as nothing the counselor do you have an argument that there's a depression or a groove or some sort of physical indicator that on the on the weapon that would make a reasonable person aware that something been removed you were talking at the pictures a minute ago it's if you look at the pictures and i was that an argument made in the district court that the that the weapon itself you could tell that it's been removed from looking at the pictures were submitted to this record the argument was not made because it's irrelevant as far as that application of the enhanced mint is concerned so that was not considered by the district the commentary to the guidelines as well as   hypothetical suppose that there are two serial numbers on the frame and one is removed have you violated the statu according to the guidelines the strict language plain language of the guidelines you've removed a serial number from the firearm suggests you without even if it's on the they're still one existing on the frame where it's supposed to be yes because under  out of the th circuit decision they cite policy does not trump language so here language is that one serial number is removed from the from the frame of the weapon and even though you can still trace under the policy policy would not trump the language of the gun i think you're posing council would say that the policy does not trump language an argument actually cuts in their favor yes but under your hypothetical killing which would cut favor of obligation and here we don't have to decide which cuts in favor because both the plain language of the guidelines as interpreted by this court and as applied under the very same facts by the th circuit are only or is martinez in the policy all support the district courts application subject to criminal liability under nine hundred and twenty two dollars k the plain language of the enhancement provision by contrast says only altered or obliterated we can see the one obliteration rule if there's three serial numbers or there's only one only one has to be a political motive for the guideline to apply we can see the strict liability nature of the guideline what we don't concede is that the thing that happened to the firearm here is not described in the guideline itself what about the commentary in the commentary what the sentencing commission said in no day and twenty two k applies we don't apply this that makes sense under our interpretation of it if nine hundred and twenty two k applies because that if the serial number was altered or obliterate it would make sense not to apply it because that would be double dipping if not in twenty two k applies because the serial number were removed well they'd handsome it would never apply at all to begin with because the enhancement doesn't cover removed so it doesn't inject any sense of surplusage into nine hundred and twenty two k and i think the government's argument has to go through that path in order to reach its conclusion and i think that's a strange way of interpret a guideline by interpretating injecting surplusage into the statute from which it derives we think there's a reasonable explanation for why state commission omitted removed at any rate we know they did it removed if the night circuit in this circuits description of the legislative history is correct if we look at the makes accurate information less access all but that's the policy purpose we cannot put that ahead of the text itself when the text doesn't support the enhancement just like the night circuit declined to do so in