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BRYAN v. UNITED STATES

Scalia, J., dissenting

“willful” to require some awareness of illegality, as opposed
to merely “an act which is intentional, or knowing, or volun-
tary, as distinguished from accidental.” Murdock, 290 U. S.,
at 394. But it in no way justiﬁes the distinction the Court
seeks to draw today between knowledge of the law the de-
fendant is actually charged with violating and knowledge of
any law the defendant could conceivably be charged with
violating. To protect the pure of heart, it is not necessary
to forgive someone whose surreptitious laundering of drug
money violates, unbeknownst to him, a technical currency
statute. There, as here, regardless of how “complex” the
violated statute may be, the defendant would have acted
“with an evil-meaning mind.”

It seems to me likely that Congress had a presumption of
offense-speciﬁc knowledge of
illegality in mind when it
enacted the provision here at issue. Another section of the
Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, Pub. L. 99–308, 100 Stat.
449, prohibits licensed dealers from selling ﬁrearms to out-
of-state residents unless they fully comply with the laws
of both States.
18 U. S. C. § 922(b)(3). The provision goes
on to state that all licensed dealers “shall be presumed, for
purposes of this subparagraph, in the absence of evidence to
the contrary, to have had actual knowledge of the State laws
and published ordinances of both States.”
Ibid. Like the
issue here, a violation of
dealer-licensing provision at
§ 922(b)(3) is a criminal offense only if committed “willfully”
within the meaning of § 924(a)(1)(D). The Court is quite cor-
rect that this provision does not establish beyond doubt that
“willfully” requires knowledge of the particular prohibitions
violated: the fact that knowledge (attributed knowledge) of
those prohibitions will be sufﬁcient does not demonstrate
conclusively that knowledge of other prohibitions will not be
sufﬁcient. Ante, at 198–199. But though it does not dem-
onstrate, it certainly suggests. To say that only willful vio-
lation of a certain law is criminal, but that knowledge of the
existence of that law is presumed, fairly reﬂects, I think, a