UNITED STATES v. THOMPSON/CENTER ARMS CO.
No. 91-164
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 13, 1992—Decided June 8, 1992
504 U.S. 505
James A. Feldman argued the cause for the United States. On the briefs were Solicitor General Starr, Assistant Attorney General Peterson, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Kent L. Jones, Gilbert S. Rothenberg, and Steven W. Parks.
Stephen P. Halbrook argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.*
JUSTICE SOUTER announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE O’CONNOR join.
Section 5821 of the National Firearms Act (NFA or Act), see
I
The word “firearm” is used as a term of art in the NFA. It means, among other things, “a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length . . . .”
The consequence of being the maker of a firearm are serious. Section 5821(a) imposes a tax of $200 “for each firearm made,” which “shall be paid by the person making the firearm,”
Respondent Thompson/Center Arms Company manufactures a single-shot pistol called the “Contender,” designed so that its handle and barrel can be removed from its “receiver,” the metal frame housing the trigger, hammer, and firing mechanism. See
In 1985, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms advised Thompson/Center that when its conversion kit was possessed or distributed together with the Contender pistol, the unit constituted a firearm subject to the NFA. Thompson/Center responded by paying the $200 tax for a single such firearm, and submitting an application for permission under
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that a short-barreled rifle “actually must be assembled” in order to be “made” within the meaning of the NFA. 924 F. 2d 1041, 1043 (1991). The Court of Appeals expressly declined to follow the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Drasen, 845 F. 2d 731, cert. denied, 488 U. S. 909 (1988), which had held that an unassembled “complete parts kit” for a short-barreled rifle was in fact a short-barreled rifle for purposes of the NFA. We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 502 U. S. 807 (1991).
II
The NFA provides that “[t]he term ‘make’, and the various derivatives of such word, shall include manufacturing (other than by one qualified to engage in such business under this chapter), putting together, altering, any combination of these, or otherwise producing a firearm.”
A
The Government urges us to view the shipment of the pistol with the kit just as we would the shipment of a bicycle
The Government’s analogy of the partially assembled bicycle to the packaged pistol and conversion kit is not, of course, exact. While each example includes some unassembled parts, the crated bicycle parts can be assembled into nothing but a bicycle, whereas the contents of Thompson/Center’s package can constitute a pistol, a long-barreled rifle, or a short-barreled version. These distinctions, however, do define the issues raised by the Government’s argument, the first of which is whether the aggregation and segregation of separate parts that can be assembled only into a short-barreled rifle and are sufficient for that purpose amount to “making” that firearm, or whether the firearm is not “made” until the moment of final assembly. This is the issue on which the Federal and Seventh Circuits are divided.
We think the language of the statute provides a clear answer on this point. The definition of “make” includes not only “putting together,” but also “manufacturing . . . or otherwise producing a firearm.” If as Thompson/Center submits, a firearm were only made at the time of final assembly (the moment the firearm was “put together”), the additional language would be redundant. Congress must, then, have understood “making” to cover more than final assembly, and some disassembled aggregation of parts must be included. Since the narrowest example of a combination of parts that might be included is a set of parts that could be used to make nothing but a short-barreled rifle, the aggregation of such a set of parts, at the very least, must fall within the definition of “making” such a rifle.
This is consistent with the holdings of every Court of Appeals, except the court below, to consider a combination of parts that could only be assembled into an NFA-regulated
We also think that a firearm is “made” on facts one step removed from the paradigm of the aggregated parts that can be used for nothing except assembling a firearm. Two courts to our knowledge have dealt in some way with claims that when a gun other than a firearm was placed together
B
Here, however, we are not dealing with an aggregation of parts that can serve no useful purpose except the assembly
1
Neither the statute’s language nor its structure provides any definitive guidance. Thompson/Center suggests guidance may be found in some subsections of the statute governing other types of weapons by language that expressly covers combinations of parts. The definition of “machinegun,” for example, was amended by the Gun Control Act of
Thompson/Center stresses the contrast between these references to “any combination of parts” and the silence about parts in the definition of rifle in arguing that no aggregation of parts can suffice to make the regulated rifle. This argument is subject to a number of answers, however. First, it sweeps so broadly as to conflict with the statutory definition of “make,” applicable to all firearms, which implies that a firearm may be “made” even where not fully “put together.” If this were all, of course, the conflict might well be resolved in Thompson/Center’s favor. We do not, however, read the machinegun and silencer definitions as contrasting with the definition of rifle in such a way as to raise a conflict with the broad concept of “making.”
The definition of “silencer” is now included in the NFA only by reference, see
In 1986, Congress replaced that language with “any silencer (as defined in section 921 of title 18, United States Code).” Pub. L. 99-308, § 109(b), 100 Stat. 460. The language defining silencer that was added to
Thompson/Center argues that if, even before the amendment, a combination of parts was already “made” into a firearm, the “any combination of parts” language would be redundant. While such a conclusion of redundancy could suggest that Congress assumed that “make” in the NFA did not cover unassembled parts, the suggestion (and the implied conflict with our reading of “make”) is proven false by evidence that Congress actually understood redundancy to result from its new silencer definition. Congress apparently assumed that the statute reached complete-parts kits even without the “combination” language and understood the net effect of the new definition as expanding the coverage of the Act beyond complete-parts kits. “The definition of silencer is amended to include any part designed or redesigned and intended to be used as a silencer for a firearm. This will help to control the sale of incomplete silencer kits that now circumvent the prohibition on selling complete kits.” H. R. Rep. No. 99-495, p. 21 (1986). Because the addition of the “combination of parts” language to the definition of silencer does not, therefore, bear the implication Thompson/Center
We get no more help from analyzing the machinegun definition’s reference to parts. It speaks of “any combination” of them in the possession or control of any one person. Here the definition sweeps broader than the aggregation of parts clearly covered by “making” a rifle. The machinegun parts need not even be in any particular proximity to each other. There is thus no conflict between definitions, but neither is much light shed on the limits of “making” a short-barreled rifle. We can only say that the notion of an unassembled machinegun is probably broader than that of an unassembled rifle. But just where the line is to be drawn on short-barreled rifles is not demonstrated by textual considerations.
2
Thompson/Center also looks for the answer in the purpose and history of the NFA, arguing that the congressional purpose behind the NFA, of regulating weapons useful for criminal purposes, should caution against drawing the line in such a way as to apply the Act to the Contender pistol and carbine kit. See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., A395 (1954) (the adoption of the original definition of rifle was intended to preclude coverage of antique guns held by collec
It is of course clear from the face of the Act that the NFA’s object was to regulate certain weapons likely to be used for criminal purposes, just as the regulation of short-barreled rifles, for example, addresses a concealable weapon likely to be so used. But when Thompson/Center urges us to recognize that “the Contender pistol and carbine kit is not a criminal-type weapon,” Brief for Respondent 20, it does not really address the issue of where the line should be drawn in deciding what combinations of parts are “made” into short-barreled rifles. Its argument goes to the quite different issue whether the single-shot Contender should be treated as a firearm within the meaning of the Act even when assembled with a rifle stock.
Since Thompson/Center’s observations on this extraneous issue shed no light on the limits of unassembled “making” under the Act, we will say no more about congressional purpose. Nor are we helped by the NFA’s legislative history, in which we find nothing to support a conclusion one way or the other about the narrow issue presented here.
III
After applying the ordinary rules of statutory construction, then, we are left with an ambiguous statute. The key to resolving the ambiguity lies in recognizing that although it is a tax statute that we construe now in a civil setting, the NFA has criminal applications that carry no additional requirement of willfulness. Cf. Cheek v. United States, 498 U. S. 192, 200 (1991) (“Congress has . . . softened the impact of the common-law presumption [that ignorance of the law is no defense to criminal prosecution] by making specific intent to violate the law an element of certain federal criminal
Affirmed.
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the plurality that the application of the National Firearms Act (NFA) to Thompson/Center’s pistol and conversion kit is sufficiently ambiguous to trigger the rule of lenity, leading to the conclusion that the kit is not covered. I disagree with the plurality, however, over where the ambiguity lies—a point that makes no difference to the outcome here, but will make considerable difference in future cases. The plurality thinks the ambiguity pertains to whether the making of a regulated firearm includes (i) the manufacture of parts kits that can possibly be used to assemble a regulated firearm, or rather includes only (ii) the manufacture of parts kits that serve no useful purpose except assembly of a regulated firearm. Ante, at 512-513, 517. I think the ambiguity pertains to the much more fundamental point of whether the making of a regulated firearm includes the manufacture, without assembly, of component parts where the definition of the particular firearm does not so indicate.
As JUSTICE WHITE points out, the choice the plurality worries about is nowhere suggested by the language of the statute: § 5845 simply makes no reference to the “utility” of aggregable parts. Post, at 524 (dissenting opinion). It does, however, conspicuously combine references to “combination of parts” in the definitions of regulated silencers, machineguns, and destructive devices with the absence of any such reference in the definition of regulated rifles. This, rather than the utility or not of a given part in a given parts assemblage, convinces me that the provision does not encom
The plurality reaches its textually uncharted destination by determining that the statutory definition of “make,” the derivative of which appears as an operative word in
This reasoning seems to me mistaken. I do not think that if “making” requires “putting together,” other language of the definition section (“manufacturing” and “otherwise producing”) becomes redundant. “Manufacturing” is qualified by the parenthetical phrase “(other than by one qualified to engage in such business under this chapter),” whereas “putting together” is not. Thus, one who assembles a firearm and also engages in the prior activity of producing the component parts can be immunized from being considered to be making firearms by demonstrating the relevant qualification, whereas one who merely assembles parts manufactured by others cannot. Recognition of this distinction is alone enough to explain the separate inclusion of “putting together,” even though “manufacturing” itself includes assembly. As for the phrase “otherwise producing,” that may well be redundant, but such residual provisions often are. They are often meant for insurance, to cover anything the draftsman might inadvertently have omitted in the antecedent catalog; and if the draftsman is good enough, he will have omitted nothing at all. They are a prime example of provisions in which “iteration is obviously afoot,” Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 120 (1990) (SCALIA, J., dissenting), and
The plurality struggles to explain why its interpretation (“making” does not require assembly of component parts) does not itself render redundant the “combination of parts” language found elsewhere in
There is another reason why the plurality’s interpretation is incorrect: It determines what constitutes a regulated “firearm” via an operative provision of the NFA (here
Finally, even if it were the case that unassembled parts could constitute a rifle, I do not think it was established in
Since I agree (for a different reason) that the rule of lenity prevents these kits from being considered firearms within the meaning of the NFA, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
JUSTICE WHITE, with whom JUSTICE BLACKMUN, JUSTICE STEVENS, and JUSTICE KENNEDY join, dissenting.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that, to meet the definition of “firearm” under the National Firearms Act (NFA),
This was the difficult issue presented by this case, and its resolution, for me, is dispositive, as respondent Thompson/Center concedes that it manufactures and distributes together a collection of parts that may be readily assembled into a short-barreled rifle. Indeed, Thompson/Center’s argument concerning statutory construction, as well as its appeal to the rule of lenity, does not suggest, nor does any case brought to our attention, that one may escape the tax and registration requirements the NFA imposes on those who “make” regulated rifles simply by distributing as part of the package other interchangeable pieces of sufficient design to avoid the regulated definition. The plurality nevertheless draws an artificial line between, on the one hand, those parts that “can serve no useful purpose except the assembly of a firearm” or that have “no ostensible utility except to convert a gun into such a weapon,” and, on the other hand, those parts that have “an obvious utility for those who want both a pistol and a regular rifle.” Ante, at 512-513.
I cannot agree. Certainly the statute makes no distinction based on the “utility” of the extra parts. While the plurality prefers to view this silence as creating ambiguity, I find it only to signal that such distinctions are irrelevant. To conclude otherwise is to resort to “ingenuity to create ambiguity” that simply does not exist in this statute. United States v. James, 478 U. S. 597, 604 (1986), quoting Rothschild v. United States, 179 U. S. 463, 465 (1900). As noted by the Government, when a weapon comes within the scope of the “firearm” definition, the fact that it may also have a nonregulated form provides no basis for failing to comply with the requirements of the NFA. Brief for United States 13-14.
The Court today thus closes one loophole—one cannot circumvent the NFA simply by offering an unassembled collection of parts—only to open another of equal dimension—one
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
If this were a criminal case in which the defendant did not have adequate notice of the Government’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute, then it would be entirely appropriate to apply the rule of lenity.1 I am persuaded, however, that the Court has misapplied that rule to this quite different case.
I agree with JUSTICE WHITE, see ante, at 523-524, and also with the plurality, see ante, at 511, that respondent has made a firearm even though it has not assembled its constituent parts. I also agree with JUSTICE WHITE that that should be the end of the case, see ante, at 524, and therefore, I join his opinion. I add this comment, however, because I am persuaded that the Government should prevail even if the statute were ambiguous.
The main function of the rule of lenity is to protect citizens from the unfair application of ambiguous punitive statutes. Obviously, citizens should not be subject to punishment without fair notice that their conduct is prohibited by law.2 The
The plurality, after acknowledging that this case involves “a tax statute” and its construction “in a civil setting,” ante, at 517, nevertheless proceeds to treat the case as though it were a criminal prosecution. In my view, the Court should approach this case like any other civil case testing the Government’s interpretation of an important regulatory statute. This statute serves the critical objective of regulating the manufacture and distribution of concealable firearms—dangerous weapons that are a leading cause of countless crimes that occur every day throughout the Nation. This is a field that has long been subject to pervasive governmental regulation because of the dangerous nature of the product and the public interest in having that danger controlled.3 The public interest in carrying out the purposes that motivated the enactment of this statute is, in my judgment and on this record, far more compelling than a mechanical application of the rule of lenity.
Accordingly, for this reason, as well as for the reasons stated by JUSTICE WHITE, I respectfully dissent.