Opinion ID: 4536769
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Loaded and unloaded firearms

Text: We first examine the most glaring distinction between the two statutes: their treatment of conduct related to antique firearms that are loaded. Connecticut criminalizes unlicensed carrying and transportation of loaded antique firearms; the federal definition excludes such conduct. The Connecticut exception for “transporting” antique pistols and revolvers by its terms applies only to “unloaded” pistols and revolvers. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 29-35(a) (“’transporting a pistol or revolver’ means 7 transporting a pistol or revolver that is unloaded”). In contrast, section 921(a)(3) of title 18, whose definition of “firearm” the INA adopts, provides without reference to whether the firearm is loaded that “[t]he term ‘firearm’ . . . does not include an antique firearm.” The state prohibition and INA offense definition therefore do not match. In its decision, the BIA failed to make any mention of this distinction. The textual difference is fatal, however, to its decision that Williams’s Connecticut conviction is a removable offense. While we need not go further to find that the state statute is not a categorical match, we do so only to confirm our reading.