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Page Number: 244

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 184 (1998)

199

Opinion of the Court

tainly sufﬁcient to establish a willful violation, it is not nec-
essary—and nothing in § 922(b)(3) contradicts this basic
distinction.33

V

One sentence in the trial court’s instructions to the jury,
read by itself, contained a misstatement of the law.
In a
portion of the instructions that were given after the correct
statement that we have already quoted, the judge stated:
“In this case, the government is not required to prove that
the defendant knew that a license was required, nor is the
government required to prove that he had knowledge that he
was breaking the law.” App. 19 (emphasis added).
If the
judge had added the words “that required a license,” the
sentence would have been accurate, but as given it was not.
Nevertheless, that error does not provide a basis for re-
versal for four reasons. First, petitioner did not object to
that sentence, except insofar as he had argued that the
jury should have been instructed that the Government had
the burden of proving that he had knowledge of the federal
licensing requirement. Second, in the context of the entire
instructions,
it seems unlikely that the jury was misled.
See, e. g., United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658, 674–675 (1975).
Third, petitioner failed to raise this argument in the Court
of Appeals. Finally, our grant of certiorari was limited to

33 Petitioner also argues that the statutory language—“willfully violates
any other provision of this chapter”—indicates a congressional intent to
attach liability only when a defendant possesses speciﬁc knowledge of the
“provision[s] of [the] chapter.” We rejected a similar argument in United
States v. International Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U. S. 558 (1971).
Although that case involved the word “knowingly” (in the phrase “know-
ingly violates any such regulation”), the response is the same:

“We . . . see no reason why the word ‘regulations’ [or the phrase ‘any
other provision of this chapter’] should not be construed as a shorthand
designation for speciﬁc acts or omissions which violate the Act. The Act,
so viewed, does not signal an exception to the rule that ignorance of the
law is no excuse . . . .”

Id., at 562.