Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 178.0

524US1

Unit: $U79

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 125 (1998)

133

Opinion of the Court

make for this statute to penalize one who walks with a gun
in a bag to the site of a drug sale, but to ignore a similar
individual who, like defendant Gray-Santana, travels to a
similar site with a similar gun in a similar bag, but instead
of walking, drives there with the gun in his car? How per-
suasive is a punishment that is without effect until a drug
dealer who has brought his gun to a sale (indeed has it avail-
able for use) actually takes it from the trunk (or unlocks the
It is difﬁcult to say that,
glove compartment) of his car?
considered as a class, those who prepare, say, to sell drugs
by placing guns in their cars are less dangerous, or less de-
serving of punishment, than those who carry handguns on
their person.

We have found no signiﬁcant indication elsewhere in the
legislative history of any more narrowly focused relevant
purpose. We have found an instance in which a legislator
referred to the statute as applicable when an individual “has
a ﬁrearm on his person,” ibid. (Rep. Meskill); an instance in
which a legislator speaks of “a criminal who takes a gun in
his hand,” id., at 22239 (Rep. Pucinski); and a reference in
the Senate Report to a “gun carried in a pocket,” S. Rep.
No. 98–225, p. 314, n. 10 (1983); see also 114 Cong. Rec. 21788,
21789 (1968) (references to gun “carrying” without more).
But in these instances no one purports to deﬁne the scope of
the term “carries”; and the examples of guns carried on the
person are not used to illustrate the reach of the term “car-
ries” but to illustrate, or to criticize, a different aspect of
the statute.

Regardless, in other instances, legislators suggest that the
word “carries” has a broader scope. One legislator indicates
that the statute responds in part to the concerns of law en-
forcement personnel, who had urged that “carrying short
ﬁrearms in motor vehicles be classiﬁed as carrying such
weapons concealed.”
Id., at 22242 (Rep. May). Another
criticizes a version of the proposed statute by suggesting it
might apply to drunken driving, and gives as an example a