Gun case

“ The Court is confident that "scratching one's head" with a firearm is not "more than" brandishing it. See ante, at 233. I certainly agree-but only because the "more" use referred to is more use as a weapon. Reading the Guidelines as they are written (rather than importing the Court's deus ex machina of a culpability scale) , and interpreting "use a firearm" in the strange fashion the Court does, produces, see ante, at 232, a full sevenpoint upward sentence adjustment for firing a gun at a storekeeper during a robbery ”

“ If a man should walk down the street here with a loaded revolver in his pocket he could be arrested and imprisoned, or fined, but in this State a man could walk down the street with a shot gun in his hands or any other weapon where it is exposed so people could see it. A law against carrying concealed weapons imposes no burden upon any law-abiding citizen. There are regulations, of course, permitting certain persons to carry weapons concealed, police officers, a sheriff, and other peace officers ”

“ THE FIRST QUESTION the Defendant raised through his final appeal was whether or not he murdered the Deceased torturously or cruelly, the Supreme Court entertained an opinion that: For a gun is destructively powerful by nature, it may be used to cause lethal danger to either human beings or animals. The facts that the Defendant shot the Deceased’s head―one of the most essential parts of the body―and that the bullet shot came into her left temple and went out of her right temple, indicated the Defendant’s intent to have her died immediately. ”

“ And in the Klondike and this same British Yukon there is a Firearms Act which makes it against the law for any civilian to tote a gun. And that law is sure carried out. Fact is, there's no need for a gun. ”

“ I will also work to make sure that police departments in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, across America get access to the federal information that will enable them to track illegal guns, because the numbers are astounding. Probably 80 percent of the guns used in gun crimes are in the hands of that criminal, that gang member -- unfortunately, people who are sometimes, you know, mentally challenged -- because it got there illegally. And under the Republicans, that information was kept from local law enforcement. ”

“ Stated simply, they may not be trusted to possess a firearm without becoming a threat to society. This title would apply both to hand guns and to long guns.
'All of these murderers had shown violent tendencies before they committed the crime for which they are most infamous. They should not have been permitted to possess a gun. Yet, there is no Federal law which would deny possession to these undesirables. ”

“ The fact that a gun is treated momentarily as an item of commerce does not render it inert or deprive it of destructive capacity. Rather, as experience demonstrates, it can be converted instantaneously from currency to cannon. See supra, at 239. We therefore see no reason why Congress would have intended courts and juries applying § 924 (c) (1) to draw a fine metaphysical distinction between a gun's role in a drug offense as a weapon and its role as an item of barter; it creates a grave possibility of violence and death in either capacity. ”

“ The Constitution of the United States was held no impediment to this legislation. Gradually laws have forbidden the carrying of guns by the common man, and these laws are growing stronger every year. In many states robbery with a gun may mean life imprisonment, while the mere carrying of a revolver is a serious offense. The passage of these drastic laws and the number of prison inmates confined for these offenses show that the invention and use of firearms has affected crime, and likewise that the government is constantly growing more doubtful of the common man. ”

“ Every pawnshop, every store where a pistol could be bought, is investigated, and under proper circumstances the requisite evidence to show deliberation and premeditation may be secured.
These investigations are naturally conducted at the very outset of the preparation of the case.
The weapon, in seven trials out of ten, is the most important thing in it. By its means it can generally be demonstrated whether the shooting was accidental or intentional—and whether or not the killing was in self-defence. ”

“ Cads and roughs almost all of them carried revolvers, and so it was that burglars went about shooting policemen. If every revolver had to be loaded with a licence, or the firearm-duty were enforced for all firearms, it would save no end of lives. But if that didn't signify, and everybody was to be free to carry a revolver, what use was there in what you might call fining a fellow for leave to carry a gun? ”

“ Over the years, the proliferation of guns in our streets, of criminals packing pistols instead of switchblades, have made crime deadlier than ever. Guns have magnified the malevolence of crime. That is why disarming criminals has been and must continue to be a top crime-fighting priority. Let none of us rest until every American is safe from gun violence. ”

“ And yet, we make absolutely no effort to keep deadly weapons out of dangerous hands. We do attempt to forbid their concealment. Practically this attempt is a failure and, in effect, we permit men to carry deadly weapons which may be successfully concealed until the very moment they are brought into use.
A great deal of the lurid literature has grown up around the pistol. The cowboy with his gun play has always been an attractive character in fiction. No doubt there is a time in the pioneer life of a community when there seems to be some excuse for the use of the revolver. ”

“ The dissent's contention therefore cannot be that the defendant must use the firearm "as a weapon," but rather that he must fire it or threaten to fire it, "as a gun." Under the dissent's approach, then, even the criminal who pistol-whips his victim has not used a firearm within the meaning of § 924 (c) (1) , for firearms are intended to be fired or brandished, not used as bludgeons. It appears that the dissent similarly would limit the scope of the "othe [r] use [s] " covered by USSG § 2B3.1 (b) (2) (B) . The universal view of the courts of appeals, however, is directly to the contrary. ”

“ Reasonable jurors might conclude that a reasonable person shouldn't be especially surprised when he learns that the gun that had been hired through his advertisement was used to do one of the things that guns often do and are designed to do—hurt people. ”

“ Jackson, Junior, asked why, if the tax on firearms was intended to prevent a chap from carrying a gun, it wasn't charged just the same upon pistols? You couldn't look into a daily paper hardly without seeing an account of a murder committed, or somebody or other shot, or shooting himself by accident, with a revolver, or the revolver going off on its own accord, and killing its owner or someone else. ”

“ Its beautiful arrangement of locks, and springs, and catches, and bolts, and pins, and screws, its unaccountable perversities, its occasional fits of sulkiness, its lovely brown complexion, and its capacity both for kicking and for smoking, all prove that a gun is in reality a sentient being of a very high order of intelligence. You may be quite certain that if you abuse your gun, even when you may imagine it to be far out of earshot, comfortably cleaned and put to roost on its rack, your gun will resent it. Why are most sportsmen so silent, so distraits at breakfast? ”

“ Another major threat to every American's person and property is the criminal carrying a handgun. The way to cut down on the criminal use of guns is not to take guns away from the law-abiding citizen, but to impose mandatory sentences for crimes in which a gun is used, make it harder to obtain cheap guns for criminal purposes, and concentrate gun control enforcement in highcrime areas.
My budget recommends 500 additional Federal agents in the 11 largest metropolitan high-crime areas to help local authorities stop criminals from selling and using handguns. ”

“ Firearms are not often used in these encounters between the police and the populace, for such battles always take place in daylight, and although, when an eviction promises to be of more than usual danger, the police carry rifles, strict orders are given not to use them save in dire extremity, and a policeman will be beaten almost to death without resorting to the use of his gun. ”

“ That the presence of a shotgun or rifle in a room or house, or building or tent, or camp of any description, within this Commonwealth, occupied by or controlled by an unnaturalized foreign-born resident shall be prima facie evidence that such gun is owned or controlled by the person occupying or controlling the property in which such gun is found, and shall render such person liable to the penalty imposed by section one of this act. ”

“ The driver of the fleeing car threw various objects out the window, striking the police car with one of them, and succeeded in eluding the officer, but the car overturned on an embankment. Police discovered it abandoned. Retracing the route of the car chase, police recovered a Mac-10 firearm, a silencer, and an ammunition cartridge, and the police matched the gun forensically to the object that had struck the police cruiser. ”

“ The instruction was that using a deadly weapon, not previously selected with a purpose to use it, was, when used in circumstances of the kind shown, a case of manslaughter. Thus there was a necessary implication that if the pistol had been previously procured, with a view to using it in self-defense, the defendant would be guilty of murder, if he discharged the pistol with fatal effect, even while defending himself from an attack threatening his life. ”

“ Don’t you think you would have done better to leave the gun alone altogether, until the police arrived?
A. (The witness for the first time exhibiting a little irritability under this catechism) : I dare say it would have been better. I was agitated, I tell you, and the situation was new to me. One doesn’t think of the proper thing to do on such an occasion unless one is a lawyer. I just took the gun with me, and chucked it into the gun-room as I passed, hating the infernal thing. ”

“ They're often the first place parents teach their children how to handle firearms safely. I know most gun dealers and owners are dedicated to promoting safe and legal gun use. But at too many gun shows, a different, dangerous trend is emerging. Because the law permits some firearms to be sold without background checks, some of these gun shows have become illegal arms bazaars for criminals and gun traffickers looking to buy and sell guns on a cash-and-carry, no-questions-asked basis. ”

“ The proposition that strict gun laws cause crime is harder to accept than the proposition that strict gun laws in part grow out of the fact that a nation already has a higher crime rate. And we are then left with the same question as before: What would have happened to crime without the gun laws—a question that respondent and his amici do not convincingly answer.
[p. 703] Further, suppose that respondent's amici are right when they say that householders' possession of loaded handguns help to frighten away intruders. ”

“ It will require background checks of anyone buying a gun. And that will help to keep guns out of the hands of people with prior criminal records and the mentally unfit. The law will prevent thousands of handgun murders. ”

“ We've spent 5 years working with State and local law enforcement to put this system in place, but when it comes to our families' safety, we must take another important step. Every year, an untold number of firearms are bought and sold at an estimated 5,000 gun shows around our country. ”

“ The bullet is the bold—fearless—and often cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no more. I have often heard the reports of guns very plainly that were fired at ducks on Detroit River, six or seven miles away. ”

“ The gun lobby nearly derailed the crime bill strongly supported by police and prosecutors, just because it banned 19 assault weapons from our streets, weapons designed only to kill people, and in spite of the fact that the crime bill protected 650 hunting and sporting weapons from any Federal restrictions. ”

“ EARL. You bet. I will be glad to. I may have to refer to my attorney. During my raid I stated that a Mr. Long was flown in from Washington, D.C, with all of my master records to check compliance with my records and inventory that I had. Apparently, they have some kind of an idea I had a bad inventory, that I had illegal guns, or I had sold guns that I had not transferred out, et cetera. This I don't do. Every gun has a pedigree, and it is just as easy to keep that pedigree if you pay attention to it. There is no way to transfer a legal gun without your neck in a noose. It isn't worth it. ”

“ Last weekend in his national radio address, President Clinton announced a report confirming that gun shows are becoming a buyer's mecca for criminals, with over 56,000 illegal firearms transfers.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act. There should not be a place anywhere in America where criminals can buy guns with no questions asked. ”

“ Because making a material misstatement in order to acquire or sell a gun is not "use" of the gun even under the broadest definition of the word "use," Congress carefully expanded the statutory language. As a result, a gun with respect to which a material misstatement is made is subject to forfeiture because, even though the gun is not "used" in the offense, it is "involved in" it. Congress, however, did not so expand the language for offenses in which firearms were "intended to be used," even though the firearms in many of those offenses function as items of commerce rather than as weapons. ”