Cite as: 575 U. S. ____ (2015) 11 Opinion of the Court considered a statute making it a crime to knowingly possess or use food stamps in an unauthorized manner. 471 U. S. 419, 420 (1985). The Government’s argument, similar to its position in this case, was that a defendant’s conviction could be upheld if he knowingly possessed or used the food stamps, and in fact his possession or use was unauthorized. Id., at 423. But this Court rejected that interpretation of the statute, because it would have criminalized “a broad range of apparently innocent conduct” and swept in individuals who had no knowledge of the facts that made their conduct blameworthy. Id., at 426. For example, the statute made it illegal to use food stamps at a store that charged higher prices to food stamp customers. Without a mental state requirement in the statute, an individual who unwittingly paid higher prices would be guilty under the Government’s interpretation. Ibid. The Court noted that Congress could have intended to cover such a “broad range of conduct,” but declined “to adopt such a sweeping interpretation” in the absence of a clear indication that Congress intended that result. Id., at 427. The Court instead construed the statute to require knowledge of the facts that made the use of the food stamps unauthorized. Id., at 425. To take another example, in Posters ‘N’ Things, Ltd. v. United States, this Court interpreted a federal statute prohibiting the sale of drug paraphernalia. 511 U. S. 513 (1994). Whether the items in question qualified as drug paraphernalia was an objective question that did not depend on the defendant’s state of mind. Id., at 517–522. But, we held, an individual could not be convicted of selling such paraphernalia unless he “knew that the items at issue [were] likely to be used with illegal drugs.” Id., at 524. Such a showing was necessary to establish the defendant’s culpable state of mind. And again, in X-Citement Video, we considered a statute criminalizing the distribution of visual depictions of mi-