Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 182

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 125 (1998)

137

Opinion of the Court

reach, leaving a gap in coverage that we do not believe Con-
gress intended.

Third, petitioners say that our reading of the statute
would extend its coverage to passengers on buses, trains, or
ships, who have placed a ﬁrearm, say, in checked luggage.
To extend this statute so far, they argue, is unfair, going well
beyond what Congress likely would have thought possible.
They add that some lower courts, thinking approximately
the same, have limited the scope of “carries” to instances
where a gun in a car is immediately accessible, thereby most
likely excluding from coverage a gun carried in a car’s trunk
or locked glove compartment. See, e. g., Foster, 133 F. 3d,
at 708 (concluding that person “carries” a ﬁrearm in a car
only if the ﬁrearm is immediately accessible); Giraldo, 80
F. 3d, at 676 (same).

In our view, this argument does not take adequate account
of other limiting words in the statute—words that make the
statute applicable only where a defendant “carries” a gun
both “during and in relation to” a drug crime.
§ 924(c)(1)
(emphasis added). Congress added these words in part to
prevent prosecution where guns “played” no part in the
crime. See S. Rep. No. 98–225, at 314, n. 10; cf. United
States v. Stewart, 779 F. 2d 538, 539 (CA9 1985) (Kennedy, J.)
(observing that “ ‘in relation to’ ” was “added to allay explic-
itly the concern that a person could be prosecuted . . . for
committing an entirely unrelated crime while in possession
of a ﬁrearm”), overruled in part on other grounds, United
States v. Hernandez, 80 F. 3d 1253, 1257 (CA9 1996).

Once one takes account of the words “during” and “in rela-
tion to,” it no longer seems beyond Congress’ likely intent,
or otherwise unfair, to interpret the statute as we have done.
If one carries a gun in a car “during” and “in relation to” a
drug sale, for example, the fact that the gun is carried in
the car’s trunk or locked glove compartment seems not only
logically difﬁcult to distinguish from the immediately accessi-
ble gun, but also beside the point.