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Comment by jfengel | Hacker News Reader

Why is the second amendment excepted? Nothing in the text says anything different from the others with regards to age.

And don't say "because it's insane for kids to buy deadly weapons" because that doesn't seem to figure into any other part of second amendment interpretation.

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Because that's the way our courts have ruled on it.

Nothing more complicated than that. The courts are empowered by the Constitution to interpret the Constitution, and their interpretation says kids can have their rights limited.

True, but the executive and legislator are bound to ignore the courts if their interpretation violates the constitution. The judicial branch for instance can't simply declare that "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law" means that "Clarence Thomas is god emperor of the US and commands all the armed forces."

If they could interpret the constitution and that was that, then the judicial branch would basically have ultimate power and be exempted from the checks the other branches have on them.

They could still be impeached by the legislative branch.

The thing authorizing that -- the constitution. So unless the legislative can ignore the "interpretation" for the purposes of impeachment, the court can simply "interpret" the part that you think authorizes impeachment to just mean something like "the meaning of life is 54."

The justices would be jailed by the executive, swiftly, if they refused to acknowledge impeachment.

Yes, exactly, the executive can ignore the court's interpretation, including an incorrect interpretation of impeachment (perhaps interpreted in such a way that impeachment as you know it would be impossible), if it violates the constitution.

The executive cannot ignore the court's interpretation on their own.

Christ, are you in high school? This shit is covered in like sophomore year social studies.

OK so the court can then simply declare an "interpretation" of impeachment that makes it impossible, or meaningless then, or perhaps also interprets any such jailing by the executive as illegal. Since they are the ones that get to decide what the text written in the constitution actually is interpreted to mean and apparently their "interpretation" cannot be ignored.

The court can say whatever they want, but they'd be saying it from jail.

To be honest I am not sure if you are even discussing this in good faith anymore. The idea that the Supreme Court could render impeachment of them null and void and the legislative and executive branches would just be :shrugging-emoji: is a little silly.

Yes, the court’s job is to interpret the law. But the Constitution is not code and the judges are not the CPU. Ultimately, the rule of law will always be dependent on people.

The problem is that I don't believe that the court is arguing in good faith any more. In which case silly interpretations don't seem beyond the realm of possibility.

I'm assured by lawyers of both parties that this is not the case. And since I am not a lawyer their understanding is worth a lot more than mine. But as someone who does have significant credentials in philosophical and scientific reasoning, I can say that legal reasoning is not at all what I am familiar with.

That’s called a constitutional crisis and then gets into bringing guns out to see who’s really in charge.

They very much are not bound to ignore the courts. That's not a thing. That's very explicitly not a thing. Why would you think that's a thing?

IIRC didn't the courts empower themselves to interpret the constitution? Nothing in the constitution says they can. Of course, since they interpret the constitution, they can just insert an interpretation that says they interpret the constitution...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

yes. IMO one can argue that it was a very reasonable pragmatic decision that set a questionable precedent for branches of the government creating powers for themselves out of whole cloth. There is a LOT of commentary in intellectual circles that hail Marbury v. Madison as some sort of genius decision, and it's quite frankly horrifying.

That didn't happen until 1968 and by that time the constitution was basically toilet paper. The answer is ever since the progressive (and on some occasions, before that) era the constitution was more of a guideline, occasionally quoted by judges much like you can quote the bible to support pretty much anything if you twist it enough.

> since the progressive (and on some occasions, before that)

Wasn’t it the other way around? E.g. the fir amendment was pretty much ignored (barely a guideline) by everyone almost until the 1900s.

Even the founders themselves discarded it almost entirely just a few years after the constitution was ratified..

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