Cite as: 530 U. S. 120 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
placed the element "uses or carries a firearm" and the word "machinegun" in a single sentence, not broken up with dashes or separated into subsections. Cf. Jones, supra, at 232-233 (noting that the structure of the carjacking statute—a "principal paragraph" followed by "numbered subsections"—makes it "look" as though the statute sets forth sentencing factors). The next three sentences of § 924(c)(1) (which appear after the sentence quoted above (see Appendix, infra)) refer directly to sentencing: the first to recidivism, the second to concurrent sentences, the third to parole. These structural features strongly suggest that the basic job of the entire first sentence is the definition of crimes and the role of the remaining three is the description of factors (such as recidivism) that ordinarily pertain only to sentencing.
We concede that there are two other structural circumstances that suggest a contrary interpretation. The title of the entirety of § 924 is "Penalties"; and in 1998 Congress re-enacted § 924(c)(1), separating different parts of the first sentence (and others) into different subsections, see Pub. L. 105- 386, § 1(a)(1), 112 Stat. 3469. In this case, however, the section's title cannot help, for Congress already has determined that at least some portion of § 924, including § 924(c) itself, creates, not penalty enhancements, but entirely new crimes. See S. Rep. No. 98-225, pp. 312-314 (1984) ("Section 924(c) sets out an offense distinct from the underlying felony and is not simply a penalty provision"); see also Busic v. United States, 446 U. S. 398, 404 (1980); Simpson v. United States, 435 U. S. 6, 10 (1978). The title alone does not tell us which are which. Nor can a new postenactment statutory restructuring help us here to determine what Congress intended at the time it enacted the earlier statutory provision that governs this case. See Almendarez-Torres, 523 U. S., at 237 (amendments that, among other things, neither "declare the meaning of earlier law" nor "seek to clarify an earlier enacted general term" fail to provide interpretive guidance).
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