From my civil procedure class
We're discussing what the "use" means in the context of 18 U.S.C. 924(c): "Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime ... uses or carries a firearm, shall be sentenced ... if the firearm is a machinegun ... for thirty years."
The professor was, in his words, "trying to make you into connoisseurs of ambiguity." To this end, he solicited suggested meanings of "using" a machinegun in the commission of a crime.
One girl, a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, gleefully proposed a hypothetical, in graphic detail, of a cocaine dealer who would snort lines of coke off his fully-automatic AK-47 as traditional way of sealing a drug deal. The question becomes whether he was "using" the machinegun in connection to a drug trafficking crime. The answer on the part of everyone else was sustained laughter.
The professor then proceed to mention Justice Scalia's hypothetical of the criminal who only "used" his machinegun to scratch his head during the drug deal. The good justice concluded that such "use" didn't quite qualify as "use."
The professor was, in his words, "trying to make you into connoisseurs of ambiguity." To this end, he solicited suggested meanings of "using" a machinegun in the commission of a crime.
One girl, a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, gleefully proposed a hypothetical, in graphic detail, of a cocaine dealer who would snort lines of coke off his fully-automatic AK-47 as traditional way of sealing a drug deal. The question becomes whether he was "using" the machinegun in connection to a drug trafficking crime. The answer on the part of everyone else was sustained laughter.
The professor then proceed to mention Justice Scalia's hypothetical of the criminal who only "used" his machinegun to scratch his head during the drug deal. The good justice concluded that such "use" didn't quite qualify as "use."
posted by JR at 3:27 PM
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