Court Opinion

ID: 9426238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:13.801554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:59.748016
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.
The petitioner in this case, a former convict, was arrested for driving while intoxicated. A revolver, fully loaded, was found on the floorboard of his car. These circumstances are offensive to those who believe in law and order. They are particularly offensive to those concerned with the need to control handguns. While I understand these concerns, I cannot join the Court in its rush to judgment, because I believe that as a matter of law the petitioner was simply not guilty of the federal statutory offense of which he stands convicted.
The petitioner bought a revolver from the Western Auto Store in Booneville, Ky., in an over-the-counter retail sale. Within an hour, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated and the revolver was found on the floorboard of his car. The revolver had been manufactured in Massachusetts and shipped to the Booneville retailer from a North Carolina distributor. The prosecution submitted no evidence of any kind that the petitioner had participated in any interstate activity involving the revolver, either before or after its purchase. On these facts, he was convicted of violating 18 U. S. C. § 922 (h), which makes it unlawful for a former criminal offender like the petitioner, “to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”
This clause first appeared in the predecessor of § 922 (h), § 2 (f) of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1250, 1251.1 In Tot v. United States, 319 *229U. S. 463 (1943), the Court interpreted this statutory-language to prohibit only receipt of firearms or ammunition as part of an interstate transaction:
“Both courts below 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. The Government agrees that this construction is correct.” Id., at 466.
Although the Tot Court was principally concerned with the constitutionality of the presumption established by the last clause of § 2 (f),2 its interpretation of the first clause of the statute was essential to its holding.3 The statutory presumption was that possession of a firearm or ammunition by any person in the class specified in § 2 (f) established receipt in violation of the statute. The Court in Tot held the presumption unconstitutional for lack of a rational connection between the fact proved *230and the facts presumed. 319 U. S., at 467-468. The Court could not have reached that decision without first determining what set of facts needed to exist in order to constitute a violation of the statute.
The Tot case did not go unnoticed when 18 TJ. S. C. § 922 (h) was enacted in its present form in 1968, as the legislative history clearly reveals. Subcommittees of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in 1967 conducted hearings on bills to amend the Federal Firearms Act. At both hearings, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue explained the decision in Tot:
“The Supreme Court declared [the presumption in § 2 (f) ] unconstitutional in a 1943 case, Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463. Consequently, in order to establish a violation of this statute, it is necessary to prove that a convicted felon found in possession of a firearm actually received it in the course of an interstate shipment.” Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. 1854 before Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 46 (1967).
“The Supreme Court has declared [the presumption in § 2 (f)] unconstitutional. In order to establish the violation of the statute it is necessary to find that the felon found in possession of the firearm actually received it in the course of interstate commerce or transportation.” Hearings on H. R. 5037, H. R. 5038, H. R. 5384, H. R. 5385, and H. R. 5386 before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 561 (1967).4
In both hearings, the Commissioner was speaking in support of bills that omitted the presumption held un*231constitutional in Tot, but that otherwise retained the same language there construed. See Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. 1854, supra, at 16, 43-44; Hearings on H. R. 5037, H. R. 5038, H. R. 5384, H. R. 5385, and H. R. 5386, supra, at 13, 555. That is precisely the form in which the statute now before us, § 922 (h), was enacted in 1968. It is thus evident that Congress was aware of Tot and adopted its interpretation of the statutory language in enacting the present law. See Francis v. Southern Pacific Co., 333 U. S. 445, 449-450 (1948); Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U. S. 469, 488-489 (1940); Commissioner v. Estate of Church, 335 U. S. 632, 682, 690 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).5
Just four years ago, in United States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336 (1971), the Court expressly stated that it found nothing to indicate “that the 1968 Act changed the prior approach to the 'receipt’ offense.” Id., at 343 n. 10. I would adhere to the Court’s settled interpretation of the statutory language here involved and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 Section 2 (f) of the Federal Firearms Act provided:
“It shall be unlawful for any person who has been convicted of a crime of violence or is a fug[i]tive from justice to receive any *229firearm 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.”

 See n. 1, supra.

 The Court today reads the Tot opinion as only attributing this interpretation to the courts below and to the Government, and not as adopting it. Ante, at 221-222. This reading is mistaken, for in rejecting an argument premised on the power of Congress to prohibit all possession of firearms by felons, the Tot opinion stated:
“[I]t is plain that Congress, for whatever reason, did not seek to pronounce general prohibition of possession by certain residents of the various states of firearms in order to protect interstate commerce, but dealt only with their future acquisition in interstate commerce.” 319 U. S., at 472 (emphasis added).

 See also these Hearings, at 575 (statement of Commissioner of Internal Revenue), 629-630, 677-678 (statements of other witnesses).

 The cases relied upon by the Court, ante, at 223 n. 8 and 224, stand for the quite different proposition that where it cannot be shown that Congress was aware of a decision of this Court interpreting a statute, such awareness cannot be presumed: Zuber v. Allen, 396 U. S. 168, 185-186, n. 21 (1969); Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61, 69-70 (1946).