Cite as: 530 U. S. 255 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Schmuck test, after all, requires an exercise in statutory interpretation before the comparison of elements may be made, and it is only sensible that normal principles of statutory construction apply. We disagree, however, with petitioner's conclusion that such principles counsel a departure in this case from what is indicated by a straightforward reading of the text.
III
We begin with the arguments pertinent to the general relationship between §§ 2113(a) and (b). Carter first contends that the structure of § 2113 supports the view that subsection (b) is a lesser included offense of subsection (a). He points to subsection (c) of § 2113, which imposes criminal liability on a person who knowingly "receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of, any property or money or other thing of value which has been taken or stolen from a bank . . . in violation of subsection (b)." (Emphasis added.) It would be anomalous, posits Carter, for subsection (c) to apply—as its text plainly provides—only to the fence who receives property from a violator of subsection (b) but not to the fence who receives property from a violator of subsection (a). The anomaly disappears, he concludes, only if subsection (b) is always violated when subsection (a) is violated—i. e., only if subsection (b) is a lesser included offense of subsection (a).
But Carter's anomaly—even if it truly exists—is only an anomaly. Petitioner does not claim, and we tend to doubt, that it rises to the level of absurdity. Cf. Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U. S. 504, 509-511 (1989); id., at 527 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). For example, it may be that violators of subsection (a) generally act alone, while violators of subsection (b) are commonly assisted by fences. In such a state of affairs, a sensible Congress may have thought it necessary to punish only the fences of property taken in violation of subsection (b). Or Congress may have thought that a defendant who violates subsection (a)
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