Court Opinion

ID: 9497959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:04:38.469003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:31.785807
License: Public Domain

RYMER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority’s disposition of Ogles’s appeal of his conviction under § 922(b)(3), and with its conclusion that we have jurisdiction to hear the government’s appeal of the motion for acquittal as to Count 2. However, I disagree, that the location-specific nature of federal gun licenses resolves the issue of whether § 922(a)(1) criminalizes Ogles’s conduct.
Section 922(a)(1) does not say that it applies to licensed dealers who deal fire*599arms outside their licensed premises. Nor does § 922(a)(1) .say what the indictment charges — that Ogles “willfully engaged in the business of dealing in firearms without a license, that is outside the State in which the licensee’s place of business was located.(Emphasis added.) What the statute actually says is: “It shall be unlawful for any person except a licensed ... dealer, to engage in the business of ... dealing in firearms ...”
Ogles teas a “licensed dealer.” Section 922(a)(1) does not state that a licensed dealer becomes an unlicensed dealer when he sells outside the state where his place of business is located. In' charging that this is what “dealing in firearms without a license” means, the indictment imports a definition that is nowhere present on the face of the statute.
We are not concerned here with whether a dealer licensed for premises in California who deals firearms in Arizona is engaging in improper activity, or whether a licensed California dealer who wants to engage in the business of dealing firearms in Arizona must have a license for a place of business in Arizona. The question is whether Ogles’s Arizona activities violated § 922(a)(1)(A). I do not disagree with the majority that the statutes, the Regulations, and the ATF guidelines all suggest that a firearms license is location-specific. For example, license applications and fees are issued and assessed for, and record-keeping requirements apply to, each place of business, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 923(a), (d)(1)(E), and (d)(1)(F), and a dealer who violates § 923 may have his license revoked, see 18 U.S.C. § 923(e), or be subject to criminal prosecution for willful violations, see 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(D). But these provisions do not change the plain meaning of § 922(a)(1)(A). Nothing in § 922(a)(1)(A), read alone or in conjunction with §§ 921 and 923, states that a licensed dealer who .engages in off-premises, out-of-state business is not a “licensed dealer.”
The structure of § 922 indicates that subsection (a)(1)(A) does not criminalize the conduct of a licensed dealer. Subsection (a)(1) makes it a crime for “any person ” to engage- in the business of dealing in firearms — except a licensed dealer.1 By contrast, the language of subsection (b) makes it “unlawful for any licensed, ... dealer” to sell or deliver firearms under the conditions specified.2 Thus, § 922(a)(1)(A) clearly applies to all people but licensed dealers; by the same token, its words do not apply to licensed dealers who improperly engage in the business of dealing firearms. Other sections, in particular § 922(b), plainly do apply to, and criminalize, such conduct by licensed dealers. Indeed, § 922(b)(3) specifically makes it unlawful for a licensed dealer to sell firearms to a person who does not reside in the state of the dealer’s place of business.
Given this, I would not construe § 922(a)(1)(A) as applying to a licensed dealer who makes off-premises sales to out-of-state residents.
To hold otherwise has the odd effect of making the same dealer at once licensed and unlicensed with respect to the same conduct. This is manifest by the indictment in this case. Based solely on what Ogles did at the Arizona gun show, the government chose to charge him with violating both § 922(b)(3), which makes it unlawful for licensed dealers to sell firearms to any person who the dealer knows does not reside in the state where the dealer’s place of business is located, and *600§ 922(a)(1)(A), which makes it unlawful for any person except a licensed dealer to deal firearms. As there is no dispute that Ogles was licensed for purposes of § 922(b)(3),' I believe he cannot be unlicensed for purposes of § 922(a)(1)(A).
The Sixth Circuit so held in United States v. Caldwell, 49 F.3d 251 (6th Cir.1995). There is merit to avoiding a circuit conflict with respect to a federal licensing scheme. Caldwell has been on the books for some time now, without Congressional action to amend the statute. This, too, influences me.
For these reasons, I would affirm across the board.

. Subsections (a)(3), (a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), (a)(7) and (a)(9) apply to "any person” as well.

. Subsection (a)(2) also applies to- “any ... dealer.’’-