314
Opinion of the Court
dress the point agree. See Caron, 77 F. 3d, at 2; McGrath v. United States, 60 F. 3d 1005, 1008 (CA2 1995), cert. denied, 516 U. S. 1121 (1996); United States v. Hall, 20 F. 3d 1066, 1068-1069 (CA10 1994); United States v. Glaser, 14 F. 3d 1213, 1218 (CA7 1994); United States v. Thomas, 991 F. 2d 206, 212-213 (CA5), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 1014 (1993); United States v. Dahms, 938 F. 2d 131, 133-134 (CA9 1991); United States v. Essick, 935 F. 2d 28, 30-31 (CA4 1991); United States v. Cassidy, 899 F. 2d 543, 550, and n. 14 (CA6 1990).
Second, the District Court ruled, and petitioner urges here, that the unless clause allows an offender to possess what state law permits him to possess, and nothing more. Here, petitioner's shotguns and rifles were permitted by state law, so, under their theory, the weapons would not be covered by the unless clause. While we do not dispute the common sense of this approach, the words of the statute do not permit it. The unless clause is activated if a restoration of civil rights "expressly provides that the person may not . . . possess . . . firearms." 18 U. S. C. § 921(a)(20). Either the restorations forbade possession of "firearms" and the convictions count for all purposes, or they did not and the convictions count not at all. The unless clause looks to the terms of the past restorations alone and does not refer to the weapons at issue in the present case. So if the Massachusetts convictions count for some purposes, they count for all and bar possession of all guns.
III
The phrase "may not . . . possess . . . firearms," then, must be interpreted under either of what the parties call the two "all-or-nothing" approaches. Either it applies when the State forbids one or more types of firearms, as the Government contends; or it does not apply if state law permits one or more types of firearms, regardless of the one possessed in the particular case.
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