A 14-year-old boy allegedly fatally shot his older sister in Florida after a family argument over Christmas presents, officials said Tuesday.
The teen had been out shopping on Christmas Eve with Abrielle Baldwin, his 23-year-old sister, as well as his mother, 15-year-old brother and sister’s children, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference.
The teenage brothers got into an argument about who was getting more Christmas presents.
“They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store,” Gualtieri said.
Unfortunately, it’s the Supreme Court who defines such things and, as cited in D.C. vs. Miller above, they very clearly set the definition as noted.
Since that ruling, they have further clarified it in McDonald vs. City of Chicago (necessary because Heller involved Washington D.C., which isn’t a state).
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
Generally when I point out these inconvenient facts the response is “well, who cares what the Supreme Court says! Get the court to reverse it!”
Which, sure, can be done, we saw that with Roe vs. Wade, all it took was 50 years and the appointment of one conservative judge after another.
In theory we could flip the court, Thomas and Alito are the two oldest members of the court and highly conservative, so electing a Democratic President in '24 and again in '28 would virtually assure flipping the court.
Then the problem becomes keeping it, because the next three oldest are Roberts, Sotomayor and Kagan.
I wasn’t arguing with you about what they say NOW. I was pointing you to what they literally said THEN.
You said “a well regulated militia didn’t mean the same thing back then”
I merely pointed you to the founders own words to show you that you were wrong.
It wasn’t an amendment. It was baked into the first article.
You pointing out the RECENT supreme court ruling was a bad faith argument against my rebuttal.
Yes, I’m pointing out that the Supreme Court now has defined what the founders meant then. :) They are the arbiters of what the founders meant after all.
There’s a TON of history they go through in Heller, and McDonald and the recent ruling from New York, Bruen.
All worth reading if you have the time.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/
Bruen is the one with most of their historical reasoning because it’s the one that requires a historical precedent for gun laws, which is a new twist.
They aren’t arbiters of what the founders meant. They’re arbiters of how we currently interpret the constitution. Originalism is only one possible way to interpret it.
That’s LITERALLY their job.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/about.aspx
“As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.”
Like I said, they’re arbiters of how we currently interpret the constitution. Originalism is only one possible way to interpret it. There are philosophies like strict textualism where they only look at the plain text and bring no extra context. Or the living constitution philosophy where they apply current day context.
The Heller decision went against 200+ years of precedent.
And it was upheld 2 years later in McDonald vs. City of Chicago:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
I’m not asking anyone to LIKE the rulings, I just want people to understand what they’re talking about.
Unfortunately if you take people point by point through Heller, McDonald, Caetano (my personal favorite), and Bruen, their eyes glaze over and they never read it.