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Opinion of the Court
national Dictionary, at 2102. The phrase "in relation to" thus, at a minimum, clarifies that the firearm must have some purpose or effect with respect to the drug trafficking crime; its presence or involvement cannot be the result of accident or coincidence. As one court has observed, the "in relation to" language "allay[s] explicitly the concern that a person could be" punished under § 924(c)(1) for committing a drug trafficking offense "while in possession of a firearm" even though the firearm's presence is coincidental or entirely "unrelated" to the crime. United States v. Stewart, 779 F. 2d 538, 539 (CA9 1985) (Kennedy, J.). Instead, the gun at least must "facilitat[e], or ha[ve] the potential of facilitating," the drug trafficking offense. Id., at 540. Accord, United States v. Ocampo, 890 F. 2d 1363, 1371-1372 (CA7 1989); 957 F. 2d, at 837.
We need not determine the precise contours of the "in relation to" requirement here, however, as petitioner's use of his MAC-10 meets any reasonable construction of it. The MAC-10's presence in this case was not the product of happenstance. On the contrary, "[f]ar more than [in] the ordinary case" under § 924(c)(1), in which the gun merely facilitates the offense by providing a means of protection or intimidation, here "the gun . . . was an integral part of the transaction." United States v. Phelps, 895 F. 2d 1281, 1283 (CA9 1990) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Without it, the deal would not have been possible. The undercover officer posing as a pawnshop dealer expressly told petitioner that he was not in the narcotics business and that he did not get involved with drugs. For a MAC-10, however, he was willing to see if he could track down some cocaine.
Relying on the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Phelps and on the legislative record, petitioner insists that the relationship between the gun and the drug offense in this case is not the type of connection Congress contemplated when it drafted § 924(c)(1). With re-
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