Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 125 (1998)

143

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

ries” means embedded in § 924(c)(1). On deﬁnitions, “carry”
in legal formulations could mean, inter alia, transport, pos-
sess, have in stock, prolong (carry over), be infectious, or
wear or bear on one’s person.5 At issue here is not “carries”
at large but “carries a ﬁrearm.” The Court’s computer
search of newspapers is revealing in this light. Carrying
guns in a car showed up as the meaning “perhaps more than
one-third” of the time. Ante, at 129. One is left to wonder
what meaning showed up some two-thirds of the time.
Surely a most familiar meaning is, as the Constitution’s Sec-
ond Amendment (“keep and bear Arms”) (emphasis added)
and Black’s Law Dictionary, at 214, indicate: “wear, bear, or
carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket,
for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive
or defensive action in a case of conﬂict with another person.”
On lessons from literature, a scan of Bartlett’s and other
quotation collections shows how highly selective the Court’s
choices are. See ante, at 129.
If “[t]he greatest of writers”
have used “carry” to mean convey or transport in a vehicle,
so have they used the hydra-headed word to mean, inter
alia, carry in one’s hand, arms, head, heart, or soul, sans
vehicle. Consider, among countless examples:

“[H]e shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry
them in his bosom.” The King James Bible, Isaiah
40:11.
“And still they gaz’d, and still the wonder grew,

tion of the New American Bible (“His servants brought him in a chariot
to Jerusalem.”); Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (“His servants conveyed him
in a chariot to Jerusalem.”); see also id., Isaiah 30:6 (“They convey their
wealth on the backs of asses.”); The New Jerusalem Bible (“[T]hey bear
their riches on donkeys’ backs.”) (emphasis added in all quotations).

5 The dictionary to which this Court referred in Bailey v. United States,
516 U. S. 137, 145 (1995), contains 32 discrete deﬁnitions of “carry,” includ-
ing “[t]o make good or valid,” “to bear the aspect of,” and even “[t]o bear
(a hawk) on the ﬁst.” See Webster’s New International Dictionary 412
(2d ed. 1949).