Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1459_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

the usual rule.  Seeking to make that case, the government 
observes  that,  in  some  contexts,  the  word  “threat”  can  be 
used to speak of a more objective or abstract risk.  So, for 
example, a critic might say that a prison board’s decision to
parole a particular felon “threatens” community safety.  Or 
a conservationist might argue that a government decision
allowing commercial activity near a national park “threat-
ens”  wildlife  habitat.  Before  us,  the  government  submits 
that  the  elements  clause  uses  the  term  in  a  similar  way,
requiring  only  an  objective,  if  uncommunicated,  threat  to 
community peace and order.  And, the government argues,
anyone who takes a substantial step toward completing a 
Hobbs  Act  robbery  always  or  categorically  poses  such  a
threat. 

The trouble is, when Congress uses the word “threat” in
this  abstract  and  predictive  (rather  than  communicative)
sense, it usually makes its point plain.  It may ask, for ex-
ample,  whether  an  individual  or  circumstance  “poses”  or
“represents” a threat.  See, e.g., 6 U. S. C. § 1170(a)(1) (dis-
cussing “individuals who may pose a threat to transporta-
tion  security”);  8  U. S. C.  § 1735(a)  (immigration  officials 
must determine that an “alien does not pose a threat to the 
safety or national security of the United States”).  Here we 
have  nothing  like  that.  In  fact, what  textual  clues  we  do 
have point in the opposite direction.

Take  this  one. 

The  statute  speaks  of  the  “use” 
or “attempted use” of “physical force against the person or
property  of  another.”  Plainly,  this  language  requires  the
government  to  prove  that  the  defendant  took  specific  ac-
tions  against  specific  persons  or  their  property.  Reading
the statute’s remaining reference to the “threatened use of
physical force against the person or property of another” as
requiring a communicated threat fits with this design.  By
contrast, the government’s competing interpretation would
vastly  expand  the  statute’s  reach  by  sweeping  in  conduct 
that poses an abstract risk to community peace and order,