Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/13pdf/12-158_6579.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  572 U. S. ____ (2014) 

5 

SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment 

can  do  with  that  judge-empowering  principle:  Whatever 
has  improbably  broad,  deeply  serious,  and  apparently 
unnecessary consequences . . . is ambiguous! 

The  same  skillful  use  of  oh-so-close-to-relevant  cases 
characterizes the Court’s pro forma attempt  to find ambi-
guity in the text itself, specifically, in the term “[c]hemical
weapon.”  The  ordinary  meaning  of  weapon,  the  Court
says, is an instrument of combat, and “no speaker in natu-
ral  parlance  would  describe  Bond’s  feud-driven  act  of 
spreading irritating chemicals on Haynes’s door knob and
mailbox as ‘combat.’ ”  Ante, at 15–16.  Undoubtedly so, but
undoubtedly  beside  the  point,  since  the  Act  supplies  its 
own  definition  of  “chemical  weapon,”  which  unquestiona-
bly does bring Bond’s action within the statutory prohibi-
tion.  The Court retorts that “it is not unusual to consider 
the ordinary meaning of a defined term, particularly when
there  is  dissonance  between  that  ordinary  meaning  and 
the reach of the definition.”  Ante, at 16.  So close to true! 
What  is  “not  unusual”  is  using  the  ordinary  meaning  of 
the  term  being  defined  for  the  purpose  of  resolving  an 
ambiguity in the definition.  When, for example, “draft,” a 
word  of  many  meanings,  is  one  of  the  words  used  in  a
definition  of  “breeze,”  we  know  it  has  nothing  to  do  with
military  conscription  or  beer.  The  point  is  illustrated  by 
the almost-relevant case the Court cites for its novel prin-
ciple,  Johnson  v.  United  States,  559  U. S.  133  (2010).
There the defined term was “violent felony,” which the Act 
defined as an offense that “ ‘has as an element the use . . . 
of  physical  force  against  the  person  of  another.’ ”    Id.,  at 
135 (quoting  §924(e)(2)(B)(i)).  We had to figure out what
“physical force” meant, since the statute “d[id] not define” 
it.  Id., at 138 (emphasis added).  So we consulted (among 
other  things)  the  general  meaning  of  the  term  being  de-
fined, “violent felony.”  Id., at 140. 

In  this  case,  by  contrast,  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the
term being defined is irrelevant, because the statute’s own