Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 187.0

524US1

Unit: $U79

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MUSCARELLO v. UNITED STATES

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

In sum, drug trafﬁckers will receive signiﬁcantly longer
sentences if they are caught traveling in vehicles in which
they have placed ﬁrearms. The question that divides the
Court concerns the proper reference for enhancement in the
cases at hand, the Guidelines or § 924(c)(1).

B

Unlike the Court, I do not think dictionaries,2 surveys of
press reports,3 or the Bible 4 tell us, dispositively, what “car-

from the basic congressionally-directed effort to rationalize sentencing.”
Id., at 468.

2 I note, however, that the only legal dictionary the Court cites, Black’s
Law Dictionary, deﬁnes “carry arms or weapons” restrictively. See ante,
at 130; supra, at 139–140.

3 Many newspapers, the New York Times among them, have published
stories using “transport,” rather than “carry,” to describe gun placements
resembling petitioners’. See, e. g., Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 27, 1998,
p. 9D, col. 2 (“House members last week expanded gun laws by allowing
weapons to be carried into restaurants or transported anywhere in
cars.”); Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1997, sports section, p. 13 (“Disabled
hunters with permission to hunt from a standing vehicle would be able to
transport a shotgun in an all-terrain vehicle as long as the gun is un-
loaded and the breech is open.”); Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph,
Aug. 4, 1996, p. C10 (British gun laws require “locked steel cases bolted
onto a car for transporting guns from home to shooting range.”); Detroit
News, Oct. 26, 1997, p. D14 (“It is unlawful to carry aﬁeld or transport a
riﬂe . . . or shotgun if you have buckshot, slug, ball loads, or cut shells in
possession except while traveling directly to deer camp or target range
with ﬁrearm not readily available to vehicle occupants.”); N. Y. Times,
July 4, 1993, p. A21, col. 2 (“[T]he gun is supposed to be transported un-
loaded, in a locked box in the trunk.”); Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sept.
28, 1996, p. B1 (“Police and volunteers ask that participants . . . transport
[their guns] to the fairgrounds in the trunks of their cars.”); Worcester
Telegram & Gazette, July 16, 1996, p. B3 (“Only one gun can be turned in
per person. Guns transported in a vehicle should be locked in the
trunk.”) (emphasis added in all quotations).

4 The translator of the Good Book, it appears, bore responsibility for
determining whether the servants of Ahaziah “carried” his corpse to Jeru-
salem. Compare ante, at 129, with, e. g., The New English Bible, 2 Kings
9:28 (“His servants conveyed his body to Jerusalem.”); Saint Joseph Edi-