WATSON v. UNITED STATES

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74 OCTOBER TERM, 2007
Syllabus
WATSON v. UNITED STATES
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fifth circuit
No. 06–571. Argued October 9, 2007—Decided December 10, 2007
After trading a controlled substance for a pistol, petitioner Watson was
indicted for, inter alia, violating 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A), which sets a
mandatory minimum sentence, depending on the facts, for a defendant
who, “during and in relation to any . . . drug trafficking crime[,] . . . uses
. . . a firearm.” The statute does not define “uses,” but this Court has
spoken to it twice. In holding that “a criminal who trades his firearm
for drugs ‘uses’ it . . . within the meaning of § 924(c)(1),” Smith v. United
States, 508 U. S. 223, 241, the Court rested primarily on the “ordinary
or natural meaning” of the verb in context, id., at 228, understanding
its common range as going beyond employment as a weapon to trading
a weapon for drugs, id., at 230. Later, in holding that merely possess
ing a firearm kept near the scene of drug trafficking is not “use” under
§ 924(c)(1), the Court, in Bailey v. United States, 516 U. S. 137, again
looked to “ordinary or natural” meaning, id., at 145, deciding that
Ҥ 924(c)(1) requires evidence sufficient to show an active employment
of the firearm by the defendant, a use that makes the firearm an opera
tive factor in relation to the predicate offense,” id., at 143. Watson
pleaded guilty but reserved the right to challenge the factual basis for
a § 924(c)(1)(A) conviction and sentence. The Fifth Circuit affirmed on
its precedent foreclosing any argument that Watson had not “used” a
firearm.
Held: A person does not “use” a firearm under 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A)
when he receives it in trade for drugs. Pp. 78–83.
(a) The Government’s position lacks authority in either precedent or
regular English. Neither Smith, which addressed only the trader who
swaps his gun for drugs, not the trading partner who ends up with the
gun, nor Bailey, which ruled that a gun must be made use of actively
to satisfy § 924(c)(1)(A), decides this case. With no statutory definition,
the meaning of “uses” has to turn on “everyday meaning” revealed in
phraseology that strikes the ear as “both reasonable and normal.”
Smith, supra, at 228, 230. When Watson handed over the drugs for the
pistol, the officer “used” the pistol to get the drugs, but regular speech
would not say that Watson himself used the pistol in the trade.
Pp. 78–79.
(b) The Government’s first effort to trump ordinary English is re
jected. Noting that § 924(d)(1) authorizes seizure and forfeiture of

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Syllabus
firearms “intended to be used in” certain crimes, the Government infers
that since some of those offenses involve receipt of a firearm, “use” nec
essarily includes receipt of a gun even in a barter transaction. The
Government’s reliance on Smith for the proposition that the term must
be given the same meaning in both subsections overreads Smith. The
common verb “use” is not at odds in the two subsections but speaks to
different issues in different voices and at different levels of specificity.
Section 924(d)(1) indicates that a gun can be “used” in a receipt crime,
but does not say whether both parties to a transfer use the gun, or only
one, or which one; however, § 924(c)(1)(A) requires just such a specific
identification. Pp. 80–82.
(c) Nor is the Government’s second effort to trump ordinary English
persuasive. It claims that failing to treat receipt in trade as “use”
would create unacceptable asymmetry with Smith; i. e., it would be
strange to penalize one side of a gun-for-drugs exchange but not the
other. The problem is not with Smith, however, but with the limited
malleability of the language it construed, and policy-driven symmetry
cannot turn “receipt-in-trade” into “use.” Whatever the tension be
tween the prior result and the outcome here, law depends on respect
for language and would be served better by statutory amendment than
by racking statutory language to cover a policy it fails to reach.
Pp. 82–83.
191 Fed. Appx. 326, reversed and remanded.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito, JJ.,
joined. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post,
p. 84.
Karl J. Koch argued the cause for petitioner. With him
on the briefs were Mark T. Stancil, David T. Goldberg, and
Daniel R. Ortiz.
Deanne E. Maynard argued the cause for the United
States. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Clem
ent, Assistant Attorney General Fisher, Deputy Solicitor
General Dreeben, and William C. Brown.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Gun Owners
Foundation et al. by William J. Olson, Herbert W. Titus, John S. Miles,
and Jeremiah L. Morgan; and for the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers by Jeffrey T. Green, Sarah O’Rourke Schrup, and Pam
ela Harris.

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76 WATSON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question is whether a person who trades his drugs
for a gun “uses” a firearm “during and in relation to . . .
[a] drug trafficking crime” within the meaning of 18 U. S. C.
§ 924(c)(1)(A).1 We hold that he does not.
I
A
Section 924(c)(1)(A) sets a mandatory minimum sentence,
depending on the facts, for a defendant who, “during and in
relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime[,]
. . . uses or carries a firearm.” 2 The statute leaves the term
“uses” undefined, though we have spoken to it twice before.
Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223 (1993), raised the
converse of today’s question, and held that “a criminal who
trades his firearm for drugs ‘uses’ it during and in rela
tion to a drug trafficking offense within the meaning of
§ 924(c)(1).” Id., at 241. We rested primarily on the “ordi
nary or natural meaning” of the verb in context, id., at 228,
and understood its common range as going beyond employ
ment as a weapon: “it is both reasonable and normal to say
that petitioner ‘used’ his MAC–10 in his drug trafficking of
fense by trading it for cocaine,” id., at 230.
Two years later, the issue in Bailey v. United States, 516
U. S. 137 (1995), was whether possessing a firearm kept near
the scene of drug trafficking is “use” under § 924(c)(1). We
looked again to “ordinary or natural” meaning, id., at 145,
and decided that mere possession does not amount to “use”:
Ҥ 924(c)(1) requires evidence sufficient to show an active em
ployment of the firearm by the defendant, a use that makes
1 Formerly 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1) (1994 ed.).
2 Any violation of § 924(c)(1)(A), for example, demands a mandatory mini
mum sentence of five years. See 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). If the fire
arm is brandished, the minimum goes up to 7 years, see § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii);
if the firearm is discharged, the minimum jumps to 10 years, see
§ 924(c)(1)(A)(iii).

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the firearm an operative factor in relation to the predicate
offense,” id., at 143.3
B
This third case on the reach of § 924(c)(1)(A) began to take
shape when petitioner, Michael A. Watson, told a Govern
ment informant that he wanted to acquire a gun. On the
matter of price, the informant quoted no dollar figure but
suggested that Watson could pay in narcotics. Next, Wat
son met with the informant and an undercover law enforce
ment agent posing as a firearms dealer, to whom he gave 24
doses of oxycodone hydrocholoride (commonly, OxyContin)
for a .50-caliber semiautomatic pistol. When law enforce
ment officers arrested Watson, they found the pistol in his
car, and a later search of his house turned up a cache of
prescription medicines, guns, and ammunition. Watson said
he got the pistol “to protect his other firearms and drugs.”
App. C to Pet. for Cert. 11a.
A federal grand jury indicted him for distributing a Sched
ule II controlled substance and for “using” the pistol during
and in relation to that crime, in violation of § 924(c)(1)(A).4
Watson pleaded guilty across the board, reserving the right
to challenge the factual basis for a § 924(c)(1)(A) conviction
and the added consecutive sentence of 60 months for using
the gun. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 191 Fed. Appx. 326
(CA5 2006) (per curiam), on Circuit precedent foreclosing
any argument that Watson had not “used” a firearm, see id.,
at 327 (citing United States v. Ulloa, 94 F. 3d 949 (CA5 1996),
and United States v. Zuniga, 18 F. 3d 1254 (CA5 1994)).
3 In 1998, Congress responded to Bailey by amending § 924(c)(1). The
amendment broadened the provision to cover a defendant who, “in further
ance of any [crime of violence or drug trafficking] crime, possesses a fire
arm.” 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The amendment did not touch the “use”
prong of § 924(c)(1).
4 The grand jury also indicted Watson as a felon in possession of a fire
arm, in violation of § 922(g)(1). This count referred to the five firearms
found in Watson’s house, but not the pistol he got for the narcotics.

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78 WATSON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Cir
cuits on whether a person “uses” a firearm within the mean
ing of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A) when he trades narcotics to
obtain a gun.5 549 U. S. 1251 (2007). We now reverse.
II
A
The Government’s position that Watson “used” the pistol
under § 924(c)(1)(A) by receiving it for narcotics lacks author
ity in either precedent or regular English. To begin with,
neither Smith nor Bailey implicitly decides this case. While
Smith held that firearms may be “used” in a barter transac
tion, even with no violent employment, see 508 U. S., at 241,
the case addressed only the trader who swaps his gun for
drugs, not the trading partner who ends up with the gun.
Bailey, too, is unhelpful, with its rule that a gun must be
made use of actively to satisfy § 924(c)(1)(A), as “an operative
factor in relation to the predicate offense.” 516 U. S., at 143.
The question here is whether it makes sense to say that Wat
son employed the gun at all; Bailey does not answer it.
5 Compare United States v. Cotto, 456 F. 3d 25 (CA1 2006) (trading drugs
for a firearm constitutes “use” of the firearm under § 924(c)(1)(A)); United
States v. Sumler, 294 F. 3d 579 (CA3 2002) (same); United States v.
Ramirez-Rangel, 103 F. 3d 1501 (CA9 1997) (same); United States v. Ulloa,
94 F. 3d 949 (CA5 1996) (same); United States v. Cannon, 88 F. 3d 1495
(CA8 1996) (same), with United States v. Montano, 398 F. 3d 1276 (CA11
2005) (per curiam) (defendant did not “use” a firearm within the meaning
of § 924(c)(1)(A) when he traded drugs for a firearm); United States v.
Stewart, 246 F. 3d 728 (CADC 2001) (same); United States v. Warwick, 167
F. 3d 965 (CA6 1999) (same); United States v. Westmoreland, 122 F. 3d 431
(CA7 1997) (same). The Fourth Circuit has held that a defendant “used”
a firearm where he gave cocaine base to a compatriot in exchange for
assistance in obtaining a gun. See United States v. Harris, 39 F. 3d 1262
(1994). Subsequent unpublished opinions in that Circuit have relied on
Harris for the proposition that the receipt of a firearm in exchange for
drugs constitutes use of the firearm. See, e. g., United States v. Belcher,
No. 98–4845, 1999 WL 1080103 (Nov. 29, 1999) (per curiam).

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With no statutory definition or definitive clue, the meaning
of the verb “uses” has to turn on the language as we nor
mally speak it, see, e. g., Lopez v. Gonzales, 549 U. S. 47, 53
(2006); Asgrow Seed Co. v. Winterboer, 513 U. S. 179, 187
(1995); FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471, 476 (1994); there is no
other source of a reasonable inference about what Congress
understood when writing or what its words will bring to the
mind of a careful reader. So, in Smith we looked for “every
day meaning,” 508 U. S., at 228, revealed in phraseology that
strikes the ear as “both reasonable and normal,” id., at 230.
See also Bailey, supra, at 145. This appeal to the ordinary
leaves the Government without much of a case.
The Government may say that a person “uses” a firearm
simply by receiving it in a barter transaction, but no one else
would. A boy who trades an apple to get a granola bar is
sensibly said to use the apple, but one would never guess
which way this commerce actually flowed from hearing that
the boy used the granola. Cf. United States v. Stewart, 246
F. 3d 728, 731 (CADC 2001) (“[W]hen a person pays a cashier
a dollar for a cup of coffee in the courthouse cafeteria, the
customer has not used the coffee. He has only used the dol
lar bill”). So, when Watson handed over the drugs for the
pistol, the informant or the agent 6 “used” the pistol to get
the drugs, just as Smith held, but regular speech would not
say that Watson himself used the pistol in the trade.
“A seller does not ‘use’ a buyer’s consideration,” United
States v. Westmoreland, 122 F. 3d 431, 436 (CA7 1997), and
the Government’s contrary position recalls another case;
Lopez, supra, at 56, rejected the Government’s interpreta
tion of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) because “we do not normally
speak or write the Government’s way.” 7
6 The record does not say which.
7 Dictionaries confirm the conclusion. “Use” is concededly “elastic,”
Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 241 (1993) (Scalia, J., dissenting),
but none of its standard definitions stretch far enough to reach Watson’s

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80 WATSON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
B
The Government would trump ordinary English with two
arguments. First, it relies on Smith for the pertinence of a
neighboring provision, 18 U. S. C. § 924(d)(1), which author
izes seizure and forfeiture of firearms “intended to be used
in” certain criminal offenses listed in § 924(d)(3). Some of
those offenses involve receipt of a firearm,8 from which the
Government infers that “use” under § 924(d) necessarily in
cludes receipt of a gun even in a barter transaction. Smith
is cited for the proposition that the term must be given
the same meaning in both subsections, and the Govern
ment urges us to import “use” as “receipt in barter” into
§ 924(c)(1)(A).
We agree with the Government that § 924(d) calls for at
tention; the reference to intended use in a receipt crime car
ries some suggestion that receipt can be “use” (more of a
hint, say, than speaking of intended “use” in a crime defined
as exchange). But the suggestion is a tepid one and falls
short of supporting what is really an attempt to draw a con
clusion too specific from a premise too general.
The Smith majority rested principally on ordinary speech
in reasoning that § 924(c)(1) extends beyond use as a weapon
and includes use as an item of barter, see 508 U. S., at 228–
230, and the Smith opinion looks to § 924(d) only for its light
on that conclusion. It notes that the “intended to be used”
clause of § 924(d)(1) refers to offenses where “the firearm is
conduct, see, e. g., Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English
Language 2806 (2d ed. 1939) (“to employ”); The Random House Dictionary
of the English Language 2097 (2d ed. 1987) (to “apply to one’s own pur
poses”; “put into service; make use of ”); Black’s Law Dictionary 1541 (6th
ed. 1990) (“[t]o avail oneself of; . . . to utilize”); see also Smith, supra, at
228–229 (listing various dictionary definitions).
8 See, e. g., 18 U. S. C. § 922( j) (prohibiting, inter alia, the receipt of a
stolen firearm in interstate commerce); § 924(b) (prohibiting, inter alia,
the receipt of a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit
a felony).

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not used as a weapon but instead as an item of barter or
commerce,” id., at 234, with the implication that Congress
intended “use” to reach commercial transactions, not just
gun violence, in § 924(d) generally, see id., at 234–235. It
was this breadth of treatment that led the Smith majority
to say that, “[u]nless we are to hold that using a firearm has
a different meaning in § 924(c)(1) than it does in § 924(d)—and
clearly we should not—we must reject petitioner’s narrow
interpretation.” Id., at 235 (citation omitted); see also Bai
ley, supra, at 146 (“[U]sing a firearm should not have a dif
ferent meaning in § 924(c)(1) than it does in § 924(d)” (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
The Government overreads Smith. While the neighbor
ing provision indicates that a firearm is “used” nonoffen
sively, and supports the conclusion that a gun can be “used”
in barter, beyond that point its illumination fails. This is so
because the utility of § 924(d)(1) is limited by its generality
and its passive voice; it tells us a gun can be “used” in a
receipt crime, but not whether both parties to a transfer use
the gun, or only one, or which one. The nearby subsection
(c)(1)(A), however, requires just such a specific identification.
It provides that a person who uses a gun in the circum
stances described commits a crime, whose perpetrator must
be clearly identifiable in advance.
The agnosticism on the part of § 924(d)(1) about who does
the using is entirely consistent with common speech’s under
standing that the first possessor is the one who “uses” the
gun in the trade, and there is thus no cause to admonish us
to adhere to the paradigm of a statute “as a symmetrical and
coherent regulatory scheme, . . . in which the operative
words have a consistent meaning throughout,” Gustafson v.
Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 569 (1995), or to invoke the “stand
ard principle of statutory construction . . . that identical
words and phrases within the same statute should normally
be given the same meaning,” Powerex Corp. v. Reliant En
ergy Services, Inc., 551 U. S. 224, 232 (2007). Subsections

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82 WATSON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
(d)(1) and (c)(1)(A) as we read them are not at odds over the
verb “use”; the point is merely that in the two subsections
the common verb speaks to different issues in different
voices and at different levels of specificity. The provisions
do distinct jobs, but we do not make them guilty of employ
ing the common verb inconsistently.9
C
The second effort to trump regular English is the claim
that failing to treat receipt in trade as “use” would create
unacceptable asymmetry with Smith. At bottom, this atex
tual policy critique says it would be strange to penalize one
side of a gun-for-drugs exchange but not the other: “[t]he
danger to society is created not only by the person who
brings the firearm to the drug transaction, but also by the
drug dealer who takes the weapon in exchange for his drugs
during the transaction,” Brief for United States 23.
The position assumes that Smith must be respected, and
we join the Government at least on this starting point. A
difference of opinion within the Court (as in Smith) does not
keep the door open for another try at statutory construction,
where stare decisis has “special force [since] the legislative
power is implicated, and Congress remains free to alter what
we have done.” Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491
U. S. 164, 172–173 (1989). What is more, in 14 years Con
gress has taken no step to modify Smith’s holding, and this
long congressional acquiescence “has enhanced even the
9 For that matter, the Government’s argument that “use” must always
have an identical meaning in §§ 924(c)(1)(A) and 924(d)(1) would upend Bai
ley v. United States, 516 U. S. 137 (1995). One of the relevant predicate
offenses referred to by § 924(d)(1) is possession of “any stolen firearm . . .
[in] interstate or foreign commerce.” 18 U. S. C. § 922( j). If we were to
hold that all criminal conduct covered by the “intended to be used” clause
in § 924(d)(1) is “use” for purposes of § 924(c)(1)(A), it would follow that
mere possession is use. But that would squarely conflict with our consid
ered and unanimous decision in Bailey that “ ‘use’ must connote more than
mere possession of a firearm.” 516 U. S., at 143.

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Opinion of the Court
usual precedential force” we accord to our interpretations of
statutes, Shepard v. United States, 544 U. S. 13, 23 (2005).
The problem, then, is not with the sturdiness of Smith but
with the limited malleability of the language Smith con
strued, and policy-driven symmetry cannot turn “receipt-in
trade” into “use.” Whatever the tension between the prior
result and the outcome here, law depends on respect for lan
guage and would be served better by statutory amendment
(if Congress sees asymmetry) than by racking statutory lan
guage to cover a policy it fails to reach.
The argument is a peculiar one, in fact, given the Govern
ment’s take on the current state of § 924(c)(1)(A). It was
amended after Bailey and now prohibits not only using a
firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime,
but also possessing one “in furtherance of ” such a crime. 18
U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A); see n. 3, supra. The Government is
confident that “a drug dealer who takes a firearm in ex
change for his drugs generally will be subject to prosecu
tion” under this new possession prong. Brief for United
States 27; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 41 (Watson’s case “could have
been charged as possession”); cf. United States v. Cox, 324
F. 3d 77, 83, n. 2 (CA2 2003) (“For defendants charged under
§ 924(c) after [the post-Bailey] amendment, trading drugs for
a gun will probably result in . . . possession [in furtherance
of a drug trafficking crime]”). This view may or may not
prevail, and we do not speak to it today, but it does leave the
appeal to symmetry underwhelming in a contest with the
English language, on the Government’s very terms.
* * *
Given ordinary meaning and the conventions of English,
we hold that a person does not “use” a firearm under
§ 924(c)(1)(A) when he receives it in trade for drugs. The
judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.

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84 WATSON v. UNITED STATES
Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment
Justice Ginsburg, concurring in the judgment.
It is better to receive than to give, the Court holds today,
at least when the subject is guns. Distinguishing, as the
Court does, between trading a gun for drugs and trading
drugs for a gun, for purposes of the 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)
enhancement, makes scant sense to me. I join the Court’s
judgment, however, because I am persuaded that the Court
took a wrong turn in Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223
(1993), when it held that trading a gun for drugs fits within
§ 924(c)(1)’s compass as “us[e]” of a firearm “during and in
relation to any . . . drug trafficking crime.” For reasons well
stated by Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion in Smith,
508 U. S., at 241, I would read the word “use” in § 924(c)(1)
to mean use as a weapon, not use in a bartering transaction.
Accordingly, I would overrule Smith, and thereby render our
precedent both coherent and consistent with normal usage.
Cf. Henslee v. Union Planters Nat. Bank & Trust Co., 335
U. S. 595, 600 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) (“Wisdom
too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it
merely because it comes late.”).