United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
161 federal appellate · 16 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 387 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Leocal v. Ashcroft (2004), United States v. Santos (2008)
161 federal appellate · 16 district · 36 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Federal Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 921 (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) · 22 U.S.C. § 2778 · 26 U.S.C. § 5801 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5821 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5822 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5845 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5849 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5861 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968)
Relies on United States v. Bass · Cheek v. United States · United States v. Biswell · Crandon v. United States · United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 387 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“last hope of lost interpretive causes, that St. Jude of the hagiology of statutory construction.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“The main function of the rule of lenity is to protect citizens from the unfair application of ambiguous punitive statutes.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[I]t is reasonable that a fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.