4
Opinion of the Court
obliged to "venture into the thicket of legislative history," id., at 820 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted), the court found a line in a Senate Committee Report indicating that " 'the mandatory sentence under the revised subsection 924(c) [should] be served prior to the start of the sentence for the underlying or any other offense,' " ibid. (quoting S. Rep. No. 98-225, pp. 313-314 (1983) (hereinafter S. Rep.)) (emphasis deleted). If this statement were applied literally, respondents would have to serve first their state sentences, then their 5-year federal firearms sentences, and finally the sentences for their narcotics convictions—even though the narcotics sentences normally would have run concurrently with the state sentences, since they all arose out of the same criminal activity. 65 F. 3d, at 821. To avoid this irrational result, the court held that "§ 924(c)'s mandatory five-year sentence may run concurrently with a previously imposed state sentence that a defendant has already begun to serve." Id., at 819.
We granted certiorari, 518 U. S. 1003, and now vacate and remand.
II
Our analysis begins, as always, with the statutory text. Section 924(c)(1) provides:
"Whoever, during and in relation to any . . . drug trafficking crime . . . for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime . . . , be sentenced to imprisonment for five years . . . . Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person convicted of a violation of this subsection, nor shall the term of imprisonment imposed under this subsection run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment including that imposed for the . . . drug trafficking crime in which the firearm was used or carried." 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1) (emphasis added).
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