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Opinion of the Court
mandatory twenty years for any subsequent offense"). Second, statements of the bill's sponsors and supporters on the floor of the House also spoke in terms of sentencing, noting, for example, that the proposed law "imposes mandatory prison terms on those [who] would use a machinegun in the commission of a violent offense." 132 Cong. Rec. 3809 (1986) (statement of Rep. Hughes); see also, e. g., id., at 6843 (statement of Rep. Volkmer) (bill "includes stiff mandatory sentences for the use of firearms, including machineguns and silencers, in relation to violent or drug trafficking crimes"); id., at 6850 (statement of Rep. Moore) (machinegun clause "strengthen[s] criminal penalties"); id., at 6856 (statement of Rep. Wirth) (proposed law "would have many benefits, including the expansion of mandatory sentencing to those persons who use a machinegun in the commission of a violent crime"). Third, and similarly, "any discussion suggesting the creation of a new offense" was "[n]oticeably absent" from the legislative record. 91 F. 3d, at 739; Brief for United States 36.
Insofar as this history may be relevant, however, it does not significantly help the Government. That is because the statute's basic "uses or carries a firearm" provision also dealt primarily with sentencing, its pre-eminent feature consisting of the creation of a new mandatory term of imprisonment additional to that for the underlying crime of violence. Cf. Bailey, supra, at 142 ("Section 924(c)(1) requires the imposition of specified penalties"); Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 227 (1993) (same). In this context, the absence of "sepa-rate offense" statements means little, and the "mandatory sentencing" statements to which the Government points show only that Congress believed that the "machinegun" and "firearm" provisions would work similarly. Indeed, the legislative statements that discuss a new prison term for the act of "us[ing] a machine gun," see, e. g., supra this page, seemingly describe offense conduct, and, thus, argue against (not for) the Government's position.
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