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524US1

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MUSCARELLO v. UNITED STATES

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

That one small head could carry all he knew.”
O. Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, ll. 215–216, in The
Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith 30 (A. Dobson ed.
1949).
“There’s a Legion that never was ’listed,
That carries no colours or crest.”
R. Kipling, The Lost Legion, st. 1, in Rudyard Kipling’s
Verse, 1885–1918, p. 222 (1920).
“There is a homely adage which runs, ‘Speak softly and
carry a big stick; you will go far.’ ” T. Roosevelt,
Speech at Minnesota State Fair, Sept. 2, 1901, in J. Bart-
lett, Familiar Quotations 575:16 (J. Kaplan ed. 1992).6

These and the Court’s lexicological sources demonstrate viv-
idly that “carry” is a word commonly used to convey various
messages. Such references, given their variety, are not reli-
able indicators of what Congress meant, in § 924(c)(1), by
“carries a ﬁrearm.”

C

Noting the paradoxical statement, “ ‘I use a gun to protect
my house, but I’ve never had to use it,’ ” the Court in Bailey,
516 U. S., at 143, emphasized the importance of context—
the statutory context.
Just as “uses” was read to mean not
simply “possession,” but “active employment,” so “carries,”
correspondingly, is properly read to signal the most danger-

6 Popular ﬁlms and television productions provide corroborative illustra-
tions.
In “The Magniﬁcent Seven,” for example, O’Reilly (played by
Charles Bronson) says: “You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well,
your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you,
your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers.” See http://us.imdb.com/
M/search_quotes?for=carry. And in the television series “M*A*S*H,”
Hawkeye Pierce (played by Alan Alda) presciently proclaims: “I will not
carry a gun. . . . I’ll carry your books, I’ll carry a torch, I’ll carry a tune,
I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry
me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even ‘hari-kari’ if you show me how, but
I will not carry a gun!” See http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8915/
mashquotes.html.