[2] Frank J. Muscarello, the petitioner, was arrested for selling marijuana; at the time of his arrest Muscarello had a handgun in the locked glove compartment of the truck in which he was transporting the marijuana.

[3] Muscarello and the other defendants all argued that possessing firearms in a glove compartment or the trunk of a car fell outside of the scope of the mandatory sentencing statute.

[4] In deciding whether possessing a firearm in either the glove compartment or the trunk should be included in the statutory definition of “carries” the Court employed a lengthy discussion of the linguistics and ordinary meanings of the phrase “carries a firearm.”[5] The majority debated over the possible ways to define the phrase but ultimately ruled that the Congress intended for the word “carries” to be defined in its original, etymological meaning that would include conveying a gun in a vehicle and not necessarily on one’s person.

The Court did not make this ruling lightly and rested its reasoning on sources of literature, excerpts of New York Times articles, and multiple dictionaries to examine how the phrase has been used.

[6] To make this analysis the Court looked to the legislative history of the statute where they found that the congressional intent was to deter criminals to leave their guns at home instead of using them during the commission of a drug felony.