Opinion ID: 1227578
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: definition of willfully under the gun control act

Text: In evaluating The General Store's admitted violations, the district court looked to the definition of willfully set out in Perri v. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms : when a dealer understands the requirements of the law, but knowingly fails to follow them or was indifferent to them. 637 F.2d 1332, 1336 (9th Cir.1981). The General Store argues that this interpretation is inconsistent with the definition of willfully recently articulated by the Supreme Court in Safeco. 127 S.Ct. at 2208-09. Safeco considers willfully in the context of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Court reiterated that [w]here willfulness is a statutory condition of civil liability, we have generally taken it to cover not only knowing violations of a standard, but reckless ones as well[.] 127 S.Ct. at 2208. This clear directive leaves us to decide whether there is a distinction between reckless disregard as articulated in Safeco and the term indifference as used in Perri. Although at oral argument The General Store's counsel likened this distinction to considering how many angels fit on the head of a pin, parsing this language does not require us to make such a metaphysical judgment. We interpret indifference as used in Perri to mean plain indifference, which is indistinguishable from a reckless violation. Although Perri 's recitation of the indifference standard did not include the modifier plain, the two cases referenced for support cite plain indifference and, in the context of Perri, it is clear that indifference did not mean a mere mistake or negligence. See 637 F.2d at 1336 (citing Lewin v. Blumenthal, 590 F.2d 268, 269 (8th Cir.1979); Shyda v. Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, 448 F.Supp. 409, 415 (M.D.Pa.1977)). Instead, indifference as used in Perri is the same as reckless disregard, which means [c]onscious indifference to the consequences of an act. Black's Law Dictionary 506 (8th ed.2004) (emphasis added). Five circuits, in addition to ours, have similarly held that a violation of the Gun Control Act requires a willful violation that is a deliberate, knowing, or reckless violation of its requirements. Armalite Inc. v. Lambert, 544 F.3d 644, 647 (6th Cir.2008); RSM, Inc. v. Herbert, 466 F.3d 316, 321 (4th Cir.2006); Willingham Sports, Inc. v. ATF, 415 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir.2005); Stein's Inc. v. Blumenthal, 649 F.2d 463, 467 (7th Cir.1980); Lewin v. Blumenthal, 590 F.2d 268, 269 (8th Cir.1979). In Armalite, the Sixth Circuit recently noted that the classic definition of willfulness knowing or reckless, but not negligentis consistent with the standard civil usage reference in Safeco. Armalite, 544 F.3d at 648 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). There is no distinction of consequence between the definitions of willfully in Perri and Safeco. Therefore, the district court did not err by applying the Perri standard to The General Store's revocation proceeding. The General Store also urges us to disregard Perri because, when Perri was decided, § 923(e) did not include a requirement of willfulness. Congress added the willfulness proviso in the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986. Pub.L. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449 (1986). Thus, according to The General Store, the legislative history dictates that willfully must be interpreted to mean purposeful, intentional conduct. We are not persuaded by this argument. Perri used the term willfully, so the statutory change simply conformed the statutory language to our case law. Because the statute as amended is unambiguous, there is no need to look beyond the face of the statute itself, Barnhart v. Sigmon Coal Co., 534 U.S. 438, 450, 122 S.Ct. 941, 151 L.Ed.2d 908 (2002), interpreted in light of the traditional standard that applies where willfulness is a statutory condition of civil liability. Safeco, 127 S.Ct. at 2208.