govinfo:USCOURTS-ilsd-4_24-cr-40027-3

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 
 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
 Plaintiff, 
 
 v. 
 
YAROSLAV VISHNEVSKI, 
 
 Defendant. 
 
 
 
 

 
 
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER 
This case is before the Court on the Government’s Second Motion in Limine (Doc. 116). 
It asks the Court to enter an order prohibiting Defendant Yaroslav Vishnevski from presenting 
evidence, eliciting testimony, making arguments, or referencing before the jury of any alleged 
good-faith misunderstanding of the National Firearms Act (“NFA”)’s tax, registration, or 
approval requirements, and to reject Vishnevski’s proposed jury instruction No. 32.1 Vishnevski 
filed a response to the motion (Doc. 117). 
The NFA requires that certain “firearms,” including short-barreled rifles, short-barreled 
shotguns, and silencers, be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. 
See 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d). Section 5861(d) does not contain an explicit mens rea requirement. It 
merely states that “[I]t shall be unlawful for any person . . . to receive or possess a firearm which 
is not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” Id. 
 In United States v. Freed, 401 U.S. 601 (1971), the Supreme Court decided that § 
5861(d) does not require the government to prove that the defendant knew the firearm was 
unregistered. Id. at 607. Later, in Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600 (1994), the Supreme 
 
1 The Government calls this instruction No. 31. That is what the instruction was labeled as when it was first 
submitted to the Court. The Court’s initial review of Vishnevski’s proposed instructions revealed that he submitted 
two instructions labeled as No. 19. As such, the Court relabeled the instructions, and this instruction became No. 32. Page ID
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Court held that § 5861(d) requires proof that the defendant knew the characteristics of the 
weapon that made it a firearm covered by the NFA. Id. at 619. Freed and Staples, taken together, 
suggest that once the government proves that the defendant knew of these characteristics, “strict 
liability kicks in with respect to the registration.” See United States v. Edwards, 90 F.3d 199, 202 
n.3 (7th Cir. 1996); See also United States v. Elmowsky, No. 22-562, 2023 WL 3513582, at *2 
(2d Cir. May 18, 2023) (citing Staples to find that “even a good-faith belief that the [short-
barreled rifle] did not need to be registered is not a defense to the general-intent crime embodied 
in section 5861(d)”); United States v. Cox, 906 F.3d 1170, 1194–95 (10th Cir. 2018) (stating 
that, under Staples, “certain factual mistakes (e.g., that a firearm isn’t a ‘firearm’ for NFA 
purposes) may provide a defense to a charge of violating the NFA, but legal mistakes (e.g., that 
the NFA doesn’t apply to locally made firearms) do not”). 
 Although Freed and Staples were decided before the Supreme Court recognized that the 
Second Amendment includes a personal right to keep and bear arms, both cases are still good 
law, and this Court must follow them. See United States v. White, 97 F.4th 532, 539 (7th Cir. 
2024) (explaining that if “a Supreme Court decision is directly controlling, our job is to follow it 
. . . even if ‘intervening decisions have eroded [its] foundation.’” (citation omitted)). 
The Court is not persuaded that Elonis v. United States, 575 U.S. 723 (2015) warrants a 
different result. Elonis cites Staples with approval. See Elonis, 575 U.S. at 734–35. In addition, it 
reaffirms the general rule that “a defendant . . . must ‘know the facts that make his conduct fit the 
definition of the offense,’ even if he does not know that those facts gave rise to a crime.” Id. 
(quoting Staples, 511 U.S. at 608 n.8). Applying the general rule to § 5861(d), the only mens rea 
the Government must prove is that: (1) Vishnevski knowingly possessed a firearm with Page ID
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characteristics which required it to be registered in the National Firearms Registration and
Transfer Record; and (2) Vishnevski knew that the firearm had those characteristics.
Since the Government need not prove that Vishnevski had knowledge that the firearms
were unregistered, a good-faith misunderstanding of the NFA’s requirements is not an excuse. 
Accordingly, Vishnevski’s proposed jury instruction No. 32 is an inaccurate statement of the 
law, and the Court rejects the instruction. See United States v. Stott, 245 F.3d 890, 903 (7th 
Cir.2001); United States v. Lanzotti, 205 F.3d 951, 956 (7th Cir. 2000). 
For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS the Government’s Second Motion in 
Limine (Doc. 116) and REFUSES Vishnevski’s proposed jury instruction No. 32. 
IT IS SO ORDERED. 
DATED: June 12, 2026 
J. PHIL GILBERT
United States District Judge Page ID
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