Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 185

524US1

Unit: $U79

[09-08-00 13:44:10] PAGES PGT: OPIN

140

MUSCARELLO v. UNITED STATES

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

person “for the purpose of being armed and ready for offen-
sive or defensive action in case of a conﬂict.” Black’s Law
Dictionary 214 (6th ed. 1990) (deﬁning the phrase “carry
arms or weapons”); see ante, at 130. The Court holds that,
in addition, “carries a ﬁrearm,” in the context of § 924(c)(1),
means personally transporting, possessing, or keeping a
ﬁrearm in a vehicle, anyplace in a vehicle.

Without doubt, “carries” is a word of many meanings, de-
ﬁnable to mean or include carting about in a vehicle. But
that encompassing deﬁnition is not a ubiquitously necessary
one. Nor, in my judgment, is it a proper construction of
“carries” as the term appears in § 924(c)(1).
In line with
Bailey and the principle of lenity the Court has long fol-
lowed, I would conﬁne “carries a ﬁrearm,” for § 924(c)(1) pur-
poses, to the undoubted meaning of that expression in the
relevant context.
I would read the words to indicate not
merely keeping arms on one’s premises or in one’s vehicle,
but bearing them in such manner as to be ready for use as
a weapon.

I
A
I note ﬁrst what is at stake for petitioners. The question
before the Court “is not whether possession of a gun [on the
drug offender’s premises or in his car, during and in relation
to commission of the offense,] means a longer sentence for a
convicted drug dealer.
It most certainly does. . . . Rather,
the question concerns which sentencing statute governs the
precise length of the extra term of punishment,” § 924(c)(1)’s
“blunt ‘mandatory minimum’ ” ﬁve-year sentence, or the
more ﬁnely tuned “sentencing guideline statutes, under
which extra punishment for drug-related gun possession var-
ies with the seriousness of the drug crime.” United States
v. McFadden, 13 F. 3d 463, 466 (CA1 1994) (Breyer, C. J.,
dissenting).

Accordingly, there would be no “gap,” see ante, at 137, no
relevant conduct “ignore[d],” see ante, at 133, were the Court
to reject the Government’s broad reading of § 924(c)(1). To