Court Opinion

ID: 9499451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:48:34.870109+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:30.632247
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my judgment, this case rests on reading a guideline rule, U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(5), and its exception as set forth in Note 15, and determining whether Navarro’s drugs for gun exchange falls within the exception. Note 15 explains that “another felony offense” in U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(5) “refer[s] to offenses other than explosives or firearms possession or trafficking offenses.” U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1, cmt. n. 15 (2004); see United States v. Lloyd, 361 F.3d 197, 201 (3d Cir.2004) (Note 15 (then Note 18) categorically excludes firearm possession and trafficking offenses from definition of another felony offense). I agree with Navarro’s contention in this case that his bartering drugs for a gun constitutes a means of possessing a firearm such that the enhancement cannot apply under Note 15.
In United States v. Fenton, 309 F.3d 825, 828 (3d Cir.2002), this court refused to apply the same enhancement when the defendant acquired the firearms he was convicted of possessing by stealing them. Then Judge Alito explained in Lloyd that Fenton stands “for the proposition that, where a defendant is convicted for possession of firearms resulting from a theft of those same firearms, that theft is effectively a ‘firearms possession ... offense’ ... since that crime necessarily involves a taking and carrying away of the firearms involved.” Lloyd, 361 F.3d at 202; see also United States v. Szakacs, 212 F.3d 344, 350 (7th Cir.1999) (declining to apply enhancement to burglary when items stolen are firearms); United States v. Sanders, 162 F.3d 396, 399 (6th Cir.1998) (same). Just as the defendant in Fenton stole the firearms he was convicted of possessing, Navarro purchased with drugs the firearm he was convicted of possessing. The illegal means by which both men came into possession of the firearms cannot be separated from the possession itself; both crimes necessarily involve possession and taking and carrying away of the gun.13 In light of such precedent, in my view, it is incorrect for the majority to hold that buying a gun through illegal means justified the enhancement, when, as in Fenton, stealing a gun did not.
Application of the exception in Note 15 to the present case is also consistent with this court’s decision in Lloyd. In that case, the defendant placed a bomb under a car and ignited it (without causing an explosion because of a malfunction). Lloyd, 361 F.3d at 199. The court determined that possession of the homemade bomb warranted enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(5). Id. at 205. Although the defendant in that case possessed the explosive device while he placed it under a car and ignited it, it was not, as here and as in Fenton, the means through which he came into possession of the bomb. See Lloyd, 361 F.3d at 199.
Here, the majority stresses that the elements of the offense of drug “distribution” does not require an exchange of something *199of value, rather than focusing on the facts as they occurred in this case. In this case, firearm possession was integral to Navarro’s drugs for guns exchange — the exchange was the means through which he came into possession of the gun. There is no indication that Navarro brandished the gun, threatened anyone with it, or otherwise engaged in any behavior beyond mere possession.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent and would reverse the District Court’s application of the enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(5).

. As explained in Szakacs, although neither of these crimes in generic form necessarily include possession of a firearm, the crimes as they occurred in these cases necessarily included the possession or trafficking of a firearm. See 212 F.3d at 350.