Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, 18 (1998)

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142

MUSCARELLO v. UNITED STATES

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

In sum, drug traffickers will receive significantly longer sentences if they are caught traveling in vehicles in which they have placed firearms. The question that divides the Court concerns the proper reference for enhancement in the cases at hand, the Guidelines or § 924(c)(1).

B

Unlike the Court, I do not think dictionaries,2 surveys of press reports,3 or the Bible 4 tell us, dispositively, what "car-from the basic congressionally-directed effort to rationalize sentencing." Id., at 468.

2 I note, however, that the only legal dictionary the Court cites, Black's Law Dictionary, defines "carry arms or weapons" restrictively. See ante, at 130; supra, at 139-140.

3 Many newspapers, the New York Times among them, have published stories using "transport," rather than "carry," to describe gun placements resembling petitioners'. See, e. g., Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 27, 1998, p. 9D, col. 2 ("House members last week expanded gun laws by allowing weapons to be carried into restaurants or transported anywhere in cars."); Chicago Tribune, June 12, 1997, sports section, p. 13 ("Disabled hunters with permission to hunt from a standing vehicle would be able to transport a shotgun in an all-terrain vehicle as long as the gun is unloaded and the breech is open."); Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, Aug. 4, 1996, p. C10 (British gun laws require "locked steel cases bolted onto a car for transporting guns from home to shooting range."); Detroit News, Oct. 26, 1997, p. D14 ("It is unlawful to carry afield or transport a rifle . . . or shotgun if you have buckshot, slug, ball loads, or cut shells in possession except while traveling directly to deer camp or target range with firearm not readily available to vehicle occupants."); N. Y. Times, July 4, 1993, p. A21, col. 2 ("[T]he gun is supposed to be transported unloaded, in a locked box in the trunk."); Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Sept. 28, 1996, p. B1 ("Police and volunteers ask that participants . . . transport [their guns] to the fairgrounds in the trunks of their cars."); Worcester Telegram & Gazette, July 16, 1996, p. B3 ("Only one gun can be turned in per person. Guns transported in a vehicle should be locked in the trunk.") (emphasis added in all quotations).

4 The translator of the Good Book, it appears, bore responsibility for determining whether the servants of Ahaziah "carried" his corpse to Jerusalem. Compare ante, at 129, with, e. g., The New English Bible, 2 Kings 9:28 ("His servants conveyed his body to Jerusalem."); Saint Joseph Edi-

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