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Watson v. United States
Watson v. United States, 522 U.S. 74(2007), is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. The court has earlier held in Smith v. United States that the exchange of a gun for drugs constituted “use” of a firearm for purposes of a federal statute imposing penalties for “use” of a firearm “during and in relation to” a drug trafficking crime; in Watson, the court decided that a transaction in the opposite direction does not violate the same statute (i.e., Smith holds that one “uses” a gun by giving it in exchange for drugs, and Watson holds that one does not “use” a gun by receiving it in exchange for drugs).

Facts
Michael Watson was arrested by an undercover detective who traded a semi-automatic pistol for prescription drugs (24 doses of Oxycontin)which Watson was providing. Watson was sentenced to 262 months for drug trafficking plus an extra 60 months for “using” a weapon in the transaction. The weapon introduced to the transaction by the detective was not loaded. Statute 18 U.S.C 924(c)(1)(A) was intended to chastise drug traffickers who “use or carry” a weapon during drug transactions. Watson argued that he was only in possession of the unloaded weapon for a short period of time and never used the weapon before being arrested by the officials. Watson's argument was rejected which intern affirmed the lower courts ruling that Watson met the requirement of the word “use” under the statute. Watson pled guilty to the charges but appealed his conviction under the “use” of firearms during a drug transaction.

Ruling/Opinion
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the court saying that Smith held that firearms may be “used” in barter transaction, even with no violent employment and that it addressed the trader only, who swaps his gun for drugs, not the trading partner who ends up with the gun. Bailey, too, doesn’t help because it ruled that a gun must be made use of actively to satisfy 924©(1)(A), as “an operative factor in relation to the predicate offense.” The majority of the court held 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.