200
Scalia, J., dissenting
the narrow legal question whether knowledge of the licensing requirement is an essential element of the offense.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, concurring.
I join in the Court's opinion with the caveat that if petitioner had raised and preserved a specific objection to the erroneous statement in the jury instructions, see Part V, ante, at 199 and this page, I would vote to vacate the conviction.
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.
Petitioner Sillasse Bryan was convicted of "willfully" violating the federal licensing requirement for firearms dealers. The jury apparently found, and the evidence clearly shows, that Bryan was aware in a general way that some aspect of his conduct was unlawful. See ante, at 189, and n. 8. The issue is whether that general knowledge of illegality is enough to sustain the conviction, or whether a "willful" violation of the licensing provision requires proof that the defendant knew that his conduct was unlawful specifically because he lacked the necessary license. On that point the statute is, in my view, genuinely ambiguous. Most of the Court's opinion is devoted to confirming half of that ambiguity by refuting Bryan's various arguments that the statute clearly requires specific knowledge of the licensing requirement. Ante, at 192-199. The Court offers no real justification for its implicit conclusion that either (1) the statute unambiguously requires only general knowledge of illegality, or (2) ambiguously requiring only general knowledge is enough. Instead, the Court curiously falls back on "the traditional rule that ignorance of the law is no excuse" to conclude that "knowl-edge that the conduct is unlawful is all that is required." Ante, at 196. In my view, this case calls for the application of a different canon—"the familiar rule that, 'where there is
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