136
Opinion of the Court
judges cannot cause a clear text to become ambiguous by ignoring it.)
In the end, nothing but personal intuition supports the dissent's contention that the statute is directed at those who " 'failed to learn their lessons from the initial punishment,' " post, at 146 (quoting United States v. Neal, 976 F. 2d 601, 603 (CA9 1992) (Fletcher, J., dissenting)). Like most intuitions, it finds Congress to have intended what the intuitor thinks Congress ought to intend.3 And like most intuitions, it is not very precise. "[F]ailed to learn their lessons from the initial punishment" would seem to suggest that the serving of the punishment, rather than the mere pronouncement of it, is necessary before the repeat criminal will be deemed an inadequate student—a position that certainly appeals to "common sense," if not to text. Elsewhere, however, the dissent says that the lesson is taught once "an earlier conviction has become final," post, at 142—so that the felon who escapes during a trial that results in a conviction becomes eligible for enhanced punishment for his later crimes, though he has seemingly been taught no lesson except that the law is easy to beat. But no matter. Once text is abandoned, one intuition will serve as well as the other. We choose to follow the language of the statute, which gives no indication that punishment of those who fail to learn the "lesson" of prior conviction or of prior punishment is the sole purpose of § 924(c)(1), to the exclusion of other penal goals such as taking repeat offenders off the streets for especially long periods, or simply visiting society's retribution upon repeat offenders more severely. We do not agree with the dissent's suggestion that these goals defy "common sense." It seems to us eminently sensible to punish the second murder, for
3 The dissent quotes approvingly the ungarnished policy view that " 'punishing first offenders [i. e., repeat offenders who have not yet been convicted of an earlier offense] with twenty-five-year sentences does not deter crime as much as it ruins lives.' " Post, at 146, n. 10 (quoting United States v. Jones, 965 F. 2d 1507, 1521 (CA8 1992)).
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