Opinion ID: 196070
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Firearms Count.

Text: 31 Appellant fares equally poorly in his final challenge to evidentiary sufficiency. The statute of conviction, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c), requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the person perpetrating the predicate offense used a real gun. See, e.g., United States v. Kirvan, 997 F.2d 963, 966 (1st Cir.1993). Appellant tells us that the government failed to prove this essential fact. We do not agree. 32 This court recognized in Kirvan that, in order to convict under section 924(c), the gun must be real, but it need not be proven to be loaded or operable.... Id. While a toy or a replica will not do, the prosecution satisfies its burden simply by showing that the gun is a gun. Id. Furthermore, the government's proof on this point need not reach a level of scientific certainty. On the contrary, lay opinion testimony may be employed to propel a finding that an object is in fact a real gun. 8 See, e.g., Parker v. United States, 801 F.2d 1382, 1385 (D.C.Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1070, 107 S.Ct. 964, 93 L.Ed.2d 1011 (1987); United States v. Jones, 907 F.2d 456, 460 (4th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 1029, 111 S.Ct. 683, 112 L.Ed.2d 675 (1991). 33 Silhouetted against this backdrop, appellant's assignment of error pales into insignificance. Three eyewitnesses to the BayBank robbery, each of whom observed the object gripped by appellant at close range, testified that it was a gun. This evidence is enough to allow a rational jury to find that appellant carried a real gun. Accordingly, appellant's conviction under section 924(c) worked no injustice, let alone a clear and gross injustice.