Cite as: 575 U. S. ____ (2015) 11 THOMAS, J., dissenting any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another”); see also §119 (providing for the punishment of “[w]hoever knowingly makes restricted personal information about [certain officials] . . . publicly available . . . with the intent to threaten”). Elonis nonetheless suggests that an intent-to-threaten element is necessary in order to avoid the risk of punish­ ing innocent conduct. But there is nothing absurd about punishing an individual who, with knowledge of the words he uses and their ordinary meaning in context, makes a threat. For instance, a high-school student who sends a letter to his principal stating that he will massacre his classmates with a machine gun, even if he intended the letter as a joke, cannot fairly be described as engaging in innocent conduct. But see ante, at 4–5, 16 (concluding that Elonis’ conviction under §875(c) for discussing a plan to “ ‘initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imag­ ined’ ” against “ ‘a Kindergarten class’ ” cannot stand with­ out proof of some unspecified heightened mental state). Elonis also insists that we read an intent-to-threaten element into §875(c) in light of the First Amendment. But our practice of construing statutes “to avoid constitutional questions . . . is not a license for the judiciary to rewrite language enacted by the legislature,” Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52, 59–60 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted), and ordinary background principles of criminal law do not support rewriting §875(c) to include an intent-to-threaten requirement. We have not altered our traditional approach to mens rea for other constitutional provisions. See, e.g., Dean v. United States, 556 U. S. 568, 572–574 (2009) (refusing to read an intent-to-discharge­ the-firearm element into a mandatory minimum provision concerning the discharge of a firearm during a particular crime). The First Amendment should be treated no differently.