Court Opinion

ID: 9461124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:06:28.133071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:54.259375
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in that part of the court’s opinion holding that appellant cannot avail himself of the exemption contained in 18 U.S.C. § 1203 Appendix, but only because that exemption is not available to a defendant tried for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(h). That exemption applies only to convicted felons charged with receipt of firearms contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 1202. Appellant was indicted under a similar statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922 (h), also for receipt of a firearm. The exemption applicable to this offense, provided for in 18 U.S.C. § 925, requires, a convicted felon who desires to acquire a firearm contrary to the provisions of § 922(h) to secure the express permission of the Secretary of the Treasury, not a gubernatorial pardon.
I respectfully dissent from that part of the court’s opinion holding that the government established that appellant’s purchase of the gun from a local dealer satisfied the interstate commerce requirement of 18 U.S.C. § 922(h). In Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L. Ed. 1519 (1943), the Supreme Court was presented with two cases that required it to construe and to determine the validity of the predecessor statute to section 922 which provided:
It shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted of a crime of violence or is a fugitive from justice to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, and the possession of a firearm or ammunition by any such person shall be presumptive evidence that such firearm or ammunition was shipped or transported or received, as the case may be, by such person in violation of this Act. Id. at 464, 63 S.Ct. at 1243, quoting C. 850, 52 Stat. 1250, 1251; 15 U.S.C. § 902(f).
The Supreme Court observed in its opinion that two federal courts of appeals, including this court, had held that “the offense created by the Act is confined to the receipt of firearms or ammunition as a part of interstate transportation and does not extend to the receipt, in an intrastate transaction, of such articles which at some prior time, have been transported interstate.” Id. at 466, 63 S.Ct. at 1244. The Court adopted this construction as authoritative in order to determine the validity of the presumption that Congress had created in the second portion of the statue. It invalidated the presumption because there was *635“no rational connection between the fact proved [possession] and the ultimate fact [receipt in an interstate transaction] presumed. . . . ” Id. at 467, 63 S.Ct. at 1214. Possession of a gun, the Court held, afforded “no reasonable ground for a presumption that its purchase or procurement was in interstate rather than in intrastate commerce.” Id. at 468, 63 S.Ct. at 1245. Because the Supreme Court in Tot authoritatively construed § 2(f) of the Federal Firearm Act, the predecessor to section 922(h), I believe that the phrase in section 922(h), “which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce,” must be construed in the same manner as the identical phrase, “which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce,” of section 2(f). Accordingly, I would hold, as the Supreme Court did in Tot, that the mere shipment of a weapon in interstate commerce at some time before purchase in an intrastate transaction is an insufficient nexus with interstate commerce .to satisfy the requirements of section 922(h).
In United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 92 S.Ct. 515, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971), the Supreme Court reiterated that it had construed authoritatively section 2(f) in Tot and stated that section 922(h) “apparently does not reach possessions or intrastate .transactions at all, even those with an interstate commerce nexus, but is limited to the sending or receiving of firearms as part of an interstate transportation.” Id. at 342-343, 92 S.Ct. at 520. In Bass the Court, in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1202(a), concluded that with respect to that statute “the Government meets its burden . . . if it demonstrates that the firearm received has previously traveled in interstate commerce,” and observed that “this reading preserves a significant difference between the ‘receipt’ offenses under Title IV [containing section 922(h)] and Title VII [containing section 1202(a)].” Id. at 350, & n. 18, 92 S.Ct. 524. Moreover, the Court observed that the government had not demonstrated that Congress, in enacting section 922(h) in 1968, in language iden-tieal to that of section 2(f) of the Federal Firearms Control Act, had intended to change and broaden its earlier construction of this language in Tot. The government has also failed to offer in connection with this appeal any proof of •a Congressional change of intent.
Not only has the Supreme Court indicated that the “receipt” offense of section 922(h) is more limited than that defined by section 1202(a), but also this court has adopted a similar construction. In United States v. Craven, 478 F.2d 1329 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 866, 94 S.Ct. 54, 38 L.Ed.2d 85 (1973), reh. denied, 414 U.S. 1086, 94 S.Ct. 606, 38 L.Ed.2d 491, appellant contended that the government had failed to demonstrate receipt in violation of section 922(h). We observed that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the interstate character of the receipt requirement in Bass “comport [ed] with the accepted interpretation of the predecessor statutes of § 922 (h),” and “conelude[d] that 18 U.S.C. § 922(h) speaks only of receipt of firearms or ammunition in interstate transportations and does not concern possessions at all.” Id. at 1336. Applying this test, we affirmed the conviction because within a few days after the theft of a police officer’s gun in Ohio, appellant was found in possession of it in Kentucky.
Finally, in United States v. Ruffin, 490 F.2d 557 (8th Cir. 1974), not cited by either party to this appeal, the court held that “for a receipt to be cognizable under § 922(h), the government must show that at the time the gun was received it was part of an interstate transportation.” Id. at 560. Accordingly, when the evidence showed only that a gun, found in appellant’s possession in Missouri, had been stolen seven months earlier in Illinois from an interstate common carrier, appellant’s conviction had to be reversed. The evidence was deemed insufficient to show that receipt of the gun was part of an interstate transportation.
When the Supreme Court authoritatively construes a statute, and Congress preserves its original language in enact*636ing successor statutes, I believe that the scope of the statute’s prohibition remains the same, in the absence of evidence that Congress intended identical language in a successor statute to mean something different from its meaning in the original statute. In .this case, appellant’s purchase of the weapon was a purely intrastate transaction even though the gun had once been shipped in interstate commerce from the manufacturer to the dealer where it came to rest before it was sold to appellant. This evidence is insufficient to demonstrate the connection with interstate commerce required by 18 U.S.C. § 922(h). Accordingly, I would reverse appellant’s conviction.