Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 932

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Unit: $U61

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 848 (2000)

857

Opinion of the Court

Were we to adopt the Government’s expansive interpreta-
tion of § 844(i), hardly a building in the land would fall out-
side the federal statute’s domain. Practically every building
in our cities, towns, and rural areas is constructed with sup-
plies that have moved in interstate commerce, served by util-
ities that have an interstate connection, ﬁnanced or insured
by enterprises that do business across state lines, or bears
some other trace of interstate commerce. See, e. g., FERC
v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 757 (1982) (observing that elec-
tric energy is consumed “in virtually every home” and that
“[n]o State relies solely on its own resources” to meet its
inhabitants’ demand for the product).
If such connections
sufﬁced to trigger § 844(i), the statute’s limiting language,
“used in” any commerce-affecting activity, would have no of-
ﬁce. See United States v. Monholland, 607 F. 2d 1311, 1316
(CA10 1979) (ﬁnding in § 844(i) no indication that Congress
“Judges
intended to include “everybody and everything”).
should hesitate .
. to treat statutory terms in any set-
ting [as surplusage], and resistance should be heightened
when the words describe an element of a criminal offense.”
Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U. S. 135, 140–141 (1994); ac-
cord, Bailey, 516 U. S., at 145.

.

III

Our reading of § 844(i) is in harmony with the guiding prin-
ciple that “where a statute is susceptible of two construc-
tions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional
questions arise and by the other of which such questions are
avoided, our duty is to adopt the latter.” United States ex
rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S.
366, 408 (1909), quoted in Jones v. United States, 526 U. S.
227, 239 (1999); see also DeBartolo, 485 U. S., at 575; Ash-
wander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concur-
ring).
In Lopez, this Court invalidated the Gun-Free School
Zones Act, former 18 U. S. C. § 922(q) (1988 ed., Supp. V),
which made it a federal crime to possess a ﬁrearm within