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188

BRYAN v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

poses.4 FOPA therefore amended § 921 to include a deﬁni-
tion of the term “engaged in the business,” 5 and amended
§ 924 to add a scienter requirement as a condition to the im-
position of penalties for most of the unlawful acts deﬁned in
§ 922. For three categories of offenses the intent required
is that the defendant acted “knowingly”; for the fourth cate-
gory, which includes “any other provision of this chapter,”
the required intent is that the defendant acted “willfully.” 6

4 “The Congress ﬁnds that—

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“(b)(2) additional legislation is required to reafﬁrm the intent of the
Congress, as expressed in section 101 of the Gun Control Act of 1968, that
‘it is not the purpose of this title to place any undue or unnecessary Fed-
eral restrictions or burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the
acquisition, possession, or use of ﬁrearms appropriate to the purpose of
hunting, trapshooting, target shooting, personal protection, or any other
lawful activity, and that this title is not intended to discourage or eliminate
the private ownership or use of ﬁrearms by law-abiding citizens for lawful
purposes.’ ”

100 Stat. 449.

5 “Section 921 of title 18, United States Code, is amended—

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“(21) The term ‘engaged in the business’ means—

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“(C) as applied to a dealer in ﬁrearms, as deﬁned in section 921
(a)(11)(A), a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in
ﬁrearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objec-
tive of livelihood and proﬁt through the repetitive purchase and resale of
ﬁrearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional
sales, exchanges, or purchases of ﬁrearms for the enhancement of a per-
sonal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal
collection of ﬁrearms . . . .”

100 Stat. 449–450.

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6 Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(a)(1) currently provides:
“Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, subsection (b), (c),

or (f) of this section, or in section 929, whoever—

“(A) knowingly makes any false statement or representation with re-
spect to the information required by this chapter to be kept in the records
of a person licensed under this chapter or in applying for any license or
exemption or relief from disability under the provisions of this chapter;
“(B) knowingly violates subsection (a)(4), (f), (k), (r), (v), or (w) of

section 922;