This ease turns on the meaning of the term “willfully” in the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-308,100 Stat. 449 (1986) (“FOPA”). Joseph D. Obiechie was convicted after a bench trial of “willfully” engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(a)(1)(A) & 924(a)(1)(D). The district court construed “willfully” in section 924(a)(1)(D) to mean that Obiechie must have intended to do the acts that constitute the crime, but not that he must have known of the law and intended to violate it.
United States v. Obiechie,
I. BACKGROUND
Over a period of approximately six months, Obiechie purchased fifty Beretta semiautomatic pistols from Shore Galleries (“Shore”) in Lincolnwood, Illinois. The first such purchase occurred on December 3, 1991, when Obiechie arranged to buy a single Beretta for $191. 2 He indicated to the Shore sales clerk that he was purchasing the Beretta for retail sale, and the clerk recorded that purpose on the sales receipt. Obiechie picked up his pistol on December 6, after the expiration of the-seventy-two hour waiting period required by state law. On December 7, Obiechie traveled to Nigeria, returning to this country on January 1, 1992.
The next day, Obiechie purchased an additional eight Berettas from Shore, and on April 15, he purchased twenty Berettas and forty boxes of ammunition. Although Obie-chie indicated to the Shore clerk on January 2 that he intended to resell the eight pistols, he told the clerk on April 15 that he was purchasing the twenty pistols as gifts. After complying with the three-day waiting period as to each purchase, Obiechie picked up the pistols and flew to Nigeria shortly thereafter. *311 In compliance with federal law, Shore sent the required forms to the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”) reflecting Obiechie’s multiple firearms purchases following each of these sales. ATF Special Agent Kevin O’Malley called Shore upon receipt of the April 15 forms and requested that Shore notify ATF of any additional purchases by Obiechie.
Obiechie returned to Shore on April 30, 1992, and purchased twenty-one Berettas and forty boxes of ammunition. 3 As he had on April 15, Obiechie told the Shore clerk that he was purchasing the pistols as gifts. Shore immediately notified Agent O’Malley, and when Obiechie returned to pick up the firearms on May 5, ATF Agent Todd Reichert, equipped with a body recorder and transmitter, was working undercover as a Shore sales clerk. In assisting Obiechie, Reichert engaged him in conversation, and Obiechie told the agent that he was from Nigeria and that he was taking the Berettas there the following day. Reichert asked whether it was difficult to import guns into Nigeria, and Obiechie responded that he had ways of doing so. Obiechie also told Reichert that he would sell the pistols to public officials in Nigeria and that he would make a forty percent profit on each sale.
Obiechie then left Shore with the Berettas and ammunition and drove to Chicago. Two Chicago police officers who were assisting in the ATF undercover operation followed Obie-chie and eventually stopped his vehicle when it entered the Chicago city limits. Obiechie waived his rights under
Miranda v. Arizona,
Obiechie was charged in a four-count indictment with willfully engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A) (count I), and with willfully exporting or attempting to export firearms and ammunition without a license in violation of 22 U.S.C. § 2778 (counts II, III, and IV). Obiechie waived his right to a jury, and after a three-day bench trial, the district court found Obiechie guilty on count I and not guilty of the remaining charges. On counts II, III, and IV, the district court found that the government had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Obiechie had willfully violated a known legal duty to refrain from exporting firearms and ammunition without a license as required under section 2778.
II. DISCUSSION
Section 922(a)(1)(A) makes it unlawful for any person
except a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer, to engage in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms, or in the course of such business to ship, transport, or receive any firearm in interstate or foreign commerce....
Standing alone, this statute contains no
scienter
requirement.
United States v. Collins,
(a)(1) Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, subsection (b), (c), or (f) of this section, or in section 929, whoever—
(A) knowingly makes any false statement under this chapter or in applying for any license or exemption or relief *312 from disability under the provisions of this chapter;-
(B) knowingly violates subsection (a)(4), (a)(6), (f), (k), or (q) of section 922;
(C) knowingly imports or brings into the United States or any possession thereof any firearm or ammunition in violation of section 922(Z); or
(D) willfully violates any other provision of this chapter,
shall be fined not more than $5,000, imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
It is subsection (a)(1)(D) that applies here, as neither of the others purport to apply to section 922(a)(1)(A), meaning that violations of that section fall under the (a)(1)(D) catchall.
See Collins,
Subsection (D)’s willfulness requirement was added by the FOPA amendments to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 225 (1968). Prior to FOPA, many firearms crimes, including the unlicensed dealing of firearms, “were, on their face, strict liability offenses.”
United States v. Sherbondy,
In construing the willfulness requirement in
Collins,
the Second Circuit reviewed FOPA’s extensive legislative history and concluded that Congress had intended the term “willfully” “to be read broadly to require only that the government prove that the defendant’s conduct was knowing and purposeful and that the defendant intended to commit an act which the law forbids.”
In a case not cited by either party, the Eighth Circuit considered the same legislative history and reached a contrary conclusion.
See United States v. Hern,
The conflicting signals sent by FOPA’s legislative history are of lesser importance, however, after the Supreme Court’s recent decision in
Ratzlaf v. United States,
— U.S. —,
In considering the context of section 5322(a)’s use of “willfully,”
Ratzlaf
focused on section 5324(a)’s requirement that a structuring transaction be undertaken “for the purpose of evading” a bank’s reporting requirements.
Id.
at-,
Our duty under
Ratzlaf,
then, is to construe section 924(a)(l)(D)’s “willfulness”
*314
requirement not by combing FOPA’s legislative history for snippets of congressional intent, but by considering the context of the term’s use within the overall structure of the statute.
See Ratzlaf,
— U.S. at—,
In construing subsection (D), we must necessarily turn our attention to the three accompanying penalty provisions. Of section 924(a)(l)’s four subsections, (D) alone requires a willful violation. Subsections (A), (B), and (C) require only that a defendant act “knowingly.” Congress’ use of the term “willfully” in subsection (D) indicates that it intended a scienter standard there that is distinct from the “knowingly” requirement of the previous three subsections. It will therefore aid our construction of the term “willfully” in subsection (D) to first consider the meaning of “knowingly” in the preceding subsections.
In
Sherbondy, supra,
the Ninth Circuit addressed Congress’ use of the term “knowingly” in subsection (B). Two professional groups had argued as amicus curiae that the “knowingly” requirement denotes knowledge of the law, rather than only knowledge of the acts or omissions giving rise to the criminal charges.
Yet
Sherbondy
expressed no opinion on the meaning of the companion term “willfully” in section 924(a)(1)(D).
See
It is clear to us that FOPA’s “knowingly” and “willfully” standards were intended by Congress to create different
scienter
requirements for the various sections of the Gun Control Act to which each applies. We agree with
Sherbondy
that “knowingly” in section 924(a)(1) refers only to the intent to do the act that is proscribed by law, as opposed to the intentional violation of a known legal duty.
See Sherbondy,
For section 924(a)(l)’s differing standards to have distinct meanings, therefore, “willfully” must mean something more than “knowingly,” as the government has conceded.
See
Govt.Br. at 22 n. 17 (“ ‘Knowingly’ is certainly a lesser mental state than ‘willfully.’”);
see also Langley,
Because it held that knowledge of the law was not required, the district court did not consider whether the government had produced evidence that would establish Obiechie’s knowledge of section 922(a)(l)(A)’s licensing requirement. The court intimated, however, that an inference of knowledge could be drawn from the fact that Obiechie had listed “gift” as his reason for purchasing the Berettas on April 15 and April 30, after having indicated that the first two purchases were for retail sale.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Notes
. Obiechie also filed a separate appeal from the district court's denial of his motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (No. 93-3879), and we consolidated that appeal with his appeal from the underlying conviction. Obiechie’s counsel informed us at oral argument, however, that his client has abandoned the section 2255 appeal because it is completely without merit. Indeed, Obiechie failed even to address the denial of his section 2255 motion in his brief to this court. We therefore dismiss Obiechie’s appeal in No. 93-3879.
. In connection with this purchase, the Shore clerk informed Obiechie that he needed to obtain an Illinois Firearms Owners Identification card and assisted Obiechie in completing his application for the card.
. He purchased ten additional boxes of ammunition when he picked up these materials on May 5.
. Section 5324(a)(3) provides that:
(a) No person shall for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section 5313(a) ... with respect to such transaction—
(3) structure or assist in structuring, or attempt to structure or assist in structuring, any transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions.
Section 5322(a), the applicable criminal enforcement provision, prescribes penalties for "[a] person willfully violating” the antistructuring provision.
. In this regard, the Eleventh Circuit recently explained:
[I]n some contexts, courts have interpreted "willfully" as requiring a finding of general intent, meaning the intent to engage in the prohibited conduct; that is, acting voluntarily, knowingly, and intentionally, and not accidently or mistakenly. Thus, a defendant need not intend to violate the law to commit a general intent crime, but he must actually intend to do the act that the law proscribes. In other circumstances, courts have construed the term "willfully” to require a finding of specific intent, meaning the intent to violate the law; that is, acting with a "bad purpose” to disobey or disregard the law.
United States v. Phillips,
.The
Ratzlaf
majority also emphasized that section 5322(a) applies to sections other than section 5324(a)(3) and that its willfulness requirement has been read in other contexts "to require both knowledge of the reporting requirement and a specific intent to commit the crime,
i.e.,
a purpose to disobey the law.” -U.S. at --•,
. Because we do not remand for a new trial, Circuit Rule 36, by its terms, does not apply.
