148
Opinion of the Court
gress' subsequent amendments to § 924(c) employed "use" expansively, to cover both use as a weapon and use as an item of barter. See Smith, 508 U. S., at 236. But there is no evidence to indicate that Congress intended to expand the meaning of "use" so far as to swallow up any significance for "carry." If Congress had intended to deprive "use" of its active connotations, it could have simply substituted a more appropriate term—"possession"—to cover the conduct it wished to reach.
The Government nonetheless argues that our observation in Smith that "§ 924(c)(1)'s language sweeps broadly," 508 U. S., at 229, precludes limiting "use" to active employment. But our decision today is not inconsistent with Smith. Although there we declined to limit "use" to the meaning "use as a weapon," our interpretation of § 924(c)(1) nonetheless adhered to an active meaning of the term. In Smith, it was clear that the defendant had "used" the gun; the question was whether that particular use (bartering) came within the meaning of § 924(c)(1). Smith did not address the question we face today of what evidence is required to permit a jury to find that a firearm had been used at all.
To illustrate the activities that fall within the definition of "use" provided here, we briefly describe some of the activities that fall within "active employment" of a firearm, and those that do not.
The active-employment understanding of "use" certainly includes brandishing, displaying, bartering, striking with, and, most obviously, firing or attempting to fire a firearm. We note that this reading compels the conclusion that even an offender's reference to a firearm in his possession could satisfy § 924(c)(1). Thus, a reference to a firearm calculated to bring about a change in the circumstances of the predicate offense is a "use," just as the silent but obvious and forceful presence of a gun on a table can be a "use."
The example given above—"I use a gun to protect my house, but I've never had to use it"—shows that "use" takes
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