Opinion ID: 3033428
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ordinary meaning of “altered”

Text: [3] Irrespective of how “obliterated” is construed, “altered” surely requires a lesser degree of defacement. Black’s does not define “altered” or “alter,” though it provides two definiUNITED STATES v. CARTER 11481 tions of “alteration” that are not relevant here.1 Webster’s defines “alter” as “to cause to become different in some particular characteristic (as measure, dimension, course, arrangement, or inclination) without changing into something else.” Webster’s, supra, at 63. American Heritage similarly defines alter as “[t]o change or make different; modify.” American Heritage, supra, at 55. We find these definitions to comport with the ordinary meaning of the word “altered.” Carter’s argument that “unless the serial number has been changed into a different number, [it] has not been altered” must fail, then, because it is at odds with this ordinary meaning. Seizing on a definition of “alteration” relevant only to written instruments—an “act done to an instrument, after its execution, whereby its meaning or language is changed,” Black’s, supra at 85—Carter urges that to be “altered,” a firearm’s serial number must be more than merely “changed” or “modified”; it must have a changed meaning. In other words, Carter would have us view a scratched out “3” as unaltered, but a “3” that has been changed into an “8” as altered. The plain meaning of the word “altered” cannot accommodate this additional requirement. [4] Thus, we think that the American Heritage and Webster’s definitions of “alter,” which require some degree of change or modification, but not a changed meaning, better capture its ordinary meaning. Here, the district court found that the serial number on Carter’s weapon had been rendered “unobservable to the naked eye.” On appeal, Carter concedes this factual issue. His legal argument that such severe defacement does not make the serial number somehow altered—that is, “changed,” “different,” or “modified”—runs counter to this ordinary meaning, and is therefore unpersuasive. 1 The first, a “substantial change to real estate,” applies explicitly to property law; the second, an “act done to an instrument, after its execution, whereby its meaning or language is changed,” is irrelevant in cases that do not involve documents. Black’s, supra, at 85. 11482 UNITED STATES v. CARTER