Cite as: 511 U. S. 600 (1994)
Stevens, J., dissenting
regulation, but also that he knew it had all the characteristics of a "firearm" as defined in the statute. Three unambiguous guideposts direct us to the correct answer to that question: the text and structure of the Act, our cases construing both this Act and similar regulatory legislation, and the Act's history and interpretation.
I
Contrary to the assertion by the Court, the text of the statute does provide "explicit guidance in this case." Cf. ante, at 605. The relevant section of the Act makes it "unlawful for any person . . . to receive or possess a firearm which is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record." 26 U. S. C. § 5861(d). Significantly, the section contains no knowledge requirement, nor does it describe a common-law crime.
The common law generally did not condemn acts as criminal unless the actor had "an evil purpose or mental culpability," Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 252 (1952), and was aware of all the facts that made the conduct unlawful, United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250, 251-252 (1922). In interpreting statutes that codified traditional common-law offenses, courts usually followed this rule, even when the text of the statute contained no such requirement. Ibid. Because the offense involved in this case is entirely a creature of statute, however, "the background rules of the common law," cf. ante, at 605, do not require a particular construction, and critically different rules of construction apply. See Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S., at 252-260.
In Morissette, Justice Jackson outlined one such interpretive rule:
"Congressional silence as to mental elements in an Act merely adopting into federal statutory law a concept of crime already . . . well defined in common law and statutory interpretation by the states may warrant quite contrary inferences than the same silence in creating an of-
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