United States v. Luce’s Empirical Analysis
726 F.2d 47 · 1984
Citation profile
19 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2001 · most notably United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co. (1992), United States v. Endicott (1986)
19 federal appellate ·
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.
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 5845 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968) · 26 U.S.C. § 5861 (§ 201 of the Gun Control Act of 1968)
Relies on Padilla-Martinez v. United States · Kadis v. United States · United States v. Fera · United States v. Burgard · United States v. Imbruglia
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A person of common intelligence would recognize that a readily and easily assembled silencer serves no innocent purpose but is designed to facilitate the killing of another or to effectuate some other pernicious purpose by reducing the noise level of a fired weapon. [citation omitted] Under Luce's interpretation, a person could legally carry a silencer in two unassembled parts even though the two parts could be joined together within a few seconds and used to silence a lethal weapon. This would clearly frustrate Congress' intent to control the use of 'gangster-type' devices.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Entrapment occurs when the offense for which a defendant is being prosecuted was instigated by the law-enforcement officers and the defendant had no previous disposition to commit it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“such modern and lethal weapons * * * as could be used readily and efficiently by criminals or gangsters.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.