Paul A. Jones pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, a fully *258 loaded .380 caliber Baikal semiautomatic pistol, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). After calculating Jones’s advisоry United States Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines or U.S.S.G.) range to be 77 to 96 months imprisonment (level 21, cаtegory VI), the district court 2 sentenced Jones at the bottom of his U.S.S.G. range.
1. BACKGROUND
The sole issue in this appeal is whether the district court proрerly calculated Jones’s Guidelines range. Jones insists the district court erred in applying а four-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B), which increases the recommended penalty for possessing a firearm with “an altered or obliterated serial number.” Because the facts are undisputed, we review the district court’s application of the enhancеment de novo.
See United States v. Finch,
Part of the serial number on Jones’s firearm was “filed off’ or “scratched оver” and not visible to the naked eye. When a forensic specialist at the police crime laboratory later applied a weak acidic solution to the firearm, the entire serial number reappeared. The specialist explained, “whеn [the Baikal’s manufacturer] pressfed] those numbers into the surface, ... it stresse[d] the lower lеvels of the metal.... When you apply a weak acid ..., it actually etches away the stressed metal faster than the non[-]stressed metal, and ... you’re able to ... recover” thе serial number.
At sentencing the parties and the district court focused the § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B) analysis upon whеther the serial number was “obliterated” and did not discuss whether it was “altered.” The district court hеld the serial number was “obliterated,” relying on a series of cases, beginning with
United States v. Carter,
II. DISCUSSION
We need not decide whether the serial number on Jones’s firearm was “obliterated.” The facts are undisputed, and “[i]t is a well-settled principle that we may affirm a district court’s judgment on any basis supported by the record.”
United States v. Pierson,
The facts of
Carter
are similar to those before us. In
Carter,
the serial number on the defendant’s firearm was at the vеry least “partially defaced” and “not decipherable by the naked eye” but “discernible with the use of microscopy.”
Carter,
[Njothing in the language, structural сontext, legislative history, or purpose of § 2K2.1(b)(4) suggests that any defacement must make traсing impossible or extraordinarily difficult.... [A] firearm’s serial number is “altered or obliterated” when it is mаterially changed in a way that makes accurate information less accessible.... [UJnder that standard, a serial number which is not discernible to the unaided eye, but which remains detectable via microscopy, is altered or obliterated.
Id. at 916.
Similarly, the serial number on Jоnes’s firearm was “altered or obliterated.” A partially “filed off’ or “scratched away” serial number, which is not visible to the naked eye, falls well within the statutory scheme. Jones offers no contrary definition or legal authority. We must respect § 2K2.1(b)(4)(B)’s purpose to stem the flow of untraceable firearms in the black market. As the Ninth Circuit observed:
[I]t may be difficult to determine, from a visual inspection alone, whether a serial number that appears defaced is, in fact, untraceable when scientific means are employed. On the street, where these guns often trade and where microscopy is rarely available, оne cannot readily distinguish between a serial number that merely looks untraceable and one that actually is. At that level, it is appeаrances that count: A gun possessor is likely to be able to determine only whether or nоt his firearm appears more difficult, or impossible, to trace.
Id. at 915 (emphasis in original). We agree with the Ninth Circuit’s analysis and conclusion in Carter.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the district court’s judgment.
Notes
. The Honorable Nanette K. Laughrey, United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri.