Aftеr a bench proceeding, the Superior Court found that then thirteen-year-old D.F. possessed a BB gun
I. Background
The following evidence was prеsented at the evidentiary hearing: On August 16, 2011, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Filio Simic received a radio run for a man with a gun in the 700 block of Bailey Place, S.E., and a description of two individuals. After canvassing the area, Officer Simic located individuals on bicycles who matched the description. When Officer Simic approaсhed the individuals, one of them — appellant—made a turn on his bike and started pedaling away. When Officer Simic caught up with appellant, appellant said, without Officer Simic having spoken to him, “[fit’s just a BB gun. It’s just a BB gun.” Appellant told the officer that the gun was “in his waistband, in his pants.”
Officer Simic recovered the gun, which he described as “a black, 6-mm BB gun, P-Ruger 345.” The gun lookеd like a “real” semi-automatic pistol and was “extremely similar” to the officer’s own Glock weapon. The gun had the letters “BB” on it, but the “orange or yellow or ... kind of bright color cap [found] on the top of’ BB guns had been “taken off the tip of the airway of the gun” (in Officer Simic’s view,
On cross-examination, Officer Simic testified that “the sides of the compartment where the C02 cartridge would be” and “a magazine to hold BB’s” were missing. He had acknowledged on direct examination, however, that he was “[n]ot really” familiar with BB guns with C02 cartridges, and, although he had recovered about a dozen BB guns since he had been on the police force, he could not recall having recovered any that had cartridges. Officer Simic agreed that “[biased on [his] experience [i]n recovering guns,” the item he recovered from appellant was “a BB gun.”
In urging the court to grant D.F.’s motion for judgment of acquittal, D.F.’s counsel told the court that section 2301.3 contemplated “operability,” i.e., a “device capable of expelling a projectile or expelling a missile.” Counsel further argued that what was before the court was “not actually a BB gun, but was instead the frame of a BB gun” and that the item was “missing several parts that are completely necessary for it to function at all.” He emphasized that the item had “no barrel,” “no capability to hold the propellant[,] and no capability to hold the items that are actually propelled” and “doesn’t constitute a whole BB gun anymore [sic] than just the barrel would constitute a BB gun or just the cartridge that wоuld be inserted into it would be considered a BB gun.” In closing argument, counsel added that the “frame of the gun is essentially ... a toy gun” and reiterated that the regulation should be interpreted “as contemplating an operational BB gun as the definition of a BB gun.”
The court credited Officer Simic’s testimony and, in finding that D.F. committed the offense of possession of а BB gun outside a building, reasoned that “operability is not an issue for ... possession of a BB gun.” The court explained that it believed that the term “BB gun” should be construed like the term “[f]irearm” in D.C.Code § 22-4501(2A) (2001) to include any such weapon, “regardless of operability.”
On appeal, D.F. has not renewed his argument that the item Officer Simic recovered was not a BB gun.
II. Discussion
Several general principles of statutory (and regulatory) construction guide our analysis. “The primary and general rule of statutory [or regulatory] construction is that the intent of the lawmaker is to be found in the language that he has used.” Peoples Drug Stores, Inc. v. District of Columbia,
Nevertheless, “[a] court may refuse to adhere strictly to the plain language of a statute in order to effectuate the legislative purpose as determined by a reading of the legislative history or by an examination of the statute as a whole.” District of Columbia v. Edison Place,
In this case, there can be no dispute that the plain language of 24 DCMR § 2301.3 states simply that “[i]t [is] ... [unlawful for any person to carry or have in his or her possession outside any building in the District an air rifle, air gun, air pistol, B-B gun, spring gun, blowgun, bowgun, or any similar type gun[,]” without any reference to operability. D.F. argues, however, that we should imply a requirement that a BB gun be operable to support a conviction under § 2301.3 in the same way that we have previously read an operability requirement into some other weapon-possession provisions that similarly make no mention of operability.
In some of the cases on which D.F. relies, this court was interpreting statutes that contained no definition of the pertinent statutory terms, and we therefore relied on the ordinary meaning of the terms or on definitions found elsewhere in the D.C.Code. In Washington, for example, we construed the prohibition in D.C.Code § 22-3214 (1981) (“no person shall within the District of Columbia possess any ... sawed-off shotgun”) to reach only such items as were operable. See
First, as reflected in the “regardless of operability” language in D.C.Code § 22-4501 on which the Superior Court relied as guidance, our legislature has rejected the approach of our case law implying “opera-bility” as a requirement for conviction. Through the Act, the Council added the “rеgardless of operability” language to definitional sections (including D.C.Code §§ 22-4501 and 7-2501.01) that support several statutory provisions, including the statutes prohibiting carrying a dangerous weapon (D.C.Code § 22-4504(a)), carrying a pistol outside the home or business possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous crime (D.C.Code § 22-4504(b)), and carrying any of a variety of specified types of guns (D.C.Code § 22-4514(a)). The Council took corrective action specifically because “[f]or years the courts have required proof that a firearm is operable as a matter of law, even though the statute is silent as to operability and for many decades operability had not been required as an element of the offense.” Committee on Pub. Safety and the Judiciary, Report on Bill 17-593 at 1 (Nov. 25, 2008).
It is true, as D.F. emphasizes, that the Council did not amend 24 DCMR § 2301.3 when it amended several other provisions of law through the Act. However, this court had never construed § 2301.3 to include an operability requirement. For that reason, we decline to give the significаnce D.F. urges to the fact that the Council omitted from the Act any amendment to § 2301.3 to specify “regardless of operability.” On the other hand, we do take the Council’s action in amending the affected provisions as a cautionary note about reading into any weapons-possession provision an operability requirement that the рlain language does not specify.
Second, rather than “make a fortress out of the dictionary,” wé are obliged to consider 24 DCMR § 2301 as a whole. In that regard, we note that while § 2301.1 prohibits a juvenile (a “person under the age of eighteen”) from carrying or having in his or her possession “any gun ... or other dangerous weapon of any character” “upon any street, avenue, road, alley, park, or other public space,” § 2301.3 prohibits any person from carrying or having a BB gun “outside any building” in the District of Columbia (except that, under § 2301.4, an adult is not prohibited from transporting a BB gun if it is both “unloaded and securely wrapped”). The focus of § 2301.1 seems to be on the actual danger to the public presented by weapons in the hands of a juvenile (and, we think, an operability requirement might reasonably be implied in the absence of evidence of a contrary legislative intent
III. Conclusion
We hold that carrying or possessing a BB gun outside a building in thе District of Columbia violates 24 DCMR § 2301.3 without regard to whether the BB gun is operable. Wherefore, the judgment of the Superior Court is
Affirmed.
Notes
. In this opinion, we use the terms “BB gun” and "B-B gun” interchangeably.
. Section 2301.3 provides that “[i]t shall not be lawful for any person to carry or have in his or her possession outside any building in the District an air rifle, air gun, air pistol, BB gun, spring gun, blowgun, bowgun, or any similar type gun." It rеpresents the recodifi-cation of a longstanding rule that previously was part of Article IX, § 4(b) of the Police Regulations of the District of Columbia.
. As amended in 2009 by the "Inoperable Pistol Amendment Act of 2008” (the "Act”), D.C.Code § 22-4501 (2A) (2011 Supp.) provides that " '[Qirearm' means any weapon, regardless of operability, which will, or is designed or redesigned, made or remade, readily converted, rеstored, or repaired, or is intended to, expel a projectile or projectiles by the action of an explosive” (italics added). See D.C. Law 17-388, § 2(a), 56 D.C.Reg. 1162, 1162-63 (2009).
. Even if the issue were properly before us, we would likely find it difficult to rule in D.F.’s favor. One reason is that the record before us is equivocal about whether the recovered item required a C02 cartridge to be complete, and thus is less than clear about the extent of the item’s missing parts. In addition, D.F. did not ask the court to make a special finding about the extent of the missing components (and the court did not make such a finding). See Tyson v. United States,
. As this is an issue of regulatory interpretation, our review is de novo. See In re Greenspan,
. See, e.g., Moore v. United States,
. See The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 159 (3d ed.1992).
. Cf. Strong v. United States,
. Cf. Townsend v. United States,
. The District also directs our attention to D.C.Code § 7-2501.01 (2001), which includes within the definition of "destructive device” "[a]ny device by whatever name known which will, or is designed or redesigned, or may be readily converted or restored to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant through a smooth bore barrel, except a shotgun[,]” § 7-2501.01(7)(B), but establishes an exception for "[a]ny pneumatic, spring, or B-B gun which expels a single projectile not exceeding .18 inch in diameter[.]” § 7 — 2501.0 l(7)(E)(i). The District argues that it would be anomalous to treat all inoperable BB guns as falling outside § 2301.3 (which carries a maximum penalty of $300 pursuant to 24 DCMR § 100.6), when, the District asserts, a gun like D.F.’s, which was originally designed to expel 6 millimeter pellets (i.e., pellets measuring about .23 inch in diameter), is not excluded from the definition of "destructive device” in § 7-2501.1 (possession of which carries a penalty of a fine of not more than $1,000 and/or imprisonment for not more than 1 year). See D.C.Code §§ 7-2502.01 and -2507.06 (2001). We need not reach this argument.