162
Opinion of the Court
gress did so for reasons irrelevant here, see H. R. Rep. No. 2, 60th Cong., 1st Sess., 25 (1908) (stating that, technically speaking, conduct otherwise not forbidden by law was not an "offense"), and did not intend to alter the basic meaning of the Act. See Williams, supra, at 722-723.
For these or similar reasons, many lower courts have interpreted the words "any enactment" more narrowly than a literal reading might suggest. And they have applied the Act to assimilate state statutes in circumstances they thought roughly similar to those suggested by our assault/ murder example above. See, e. g., United States v. Kaufman, 862 F. 2d 236, 238 (CA9 1988) (existence of federal law punishing the carrying of a gun does not prevent assimilation of state law punishing threatening someone with a gun); Fields v. United States, 438 F. 2d 205, 207-208 (CA2 1971) (assimilation of state malicious shooting law proper despite existence of federal assault statute); United States v. Brown, 608 F. 2d 551, 553-554 (CA5 1979) (child abuse different in kind from generic federal assault, and so state law could be assimilated). But see United States v. Chaussee, 536 F. 2d 637, 644 (CA7 1976) (stating a more literal test). Like the Government, we conclude that Congress did not intend the relevant words—"any enactment"—to carry an absolutely literal meaning.
On the other hand, we cannot accept the narrow interpretation of the relevant words (and the statute's consequently broader reach) that the Solicitor General seems to urge. Drawing on our language in Williams, supra, at 717, some lower courts have said that the words "any enactment" refer only to federal enactments that make criminal the same "precise acts" as those made criminal by the relevant state law. See, e. g., United States v. Johnson, 967 F. 2d 1431, 1436 (CA10 1992). The Government apparently interprets this test to mean that, with limited exceptions, the ACA would assimilate a state law so long as that state law defines a crime in terms of at least one element that does
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