# Relationship of SCOTUS to Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in this case: Please clarify

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/relationship-of-scotus-to-supreme-judicial-court-of-massachusetts-in-this-case-please-clarify/750152>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 25, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/relationship-of-scotus-to-supreme-judicial-court-of-massachusetts-in-this-case-please-clarify/750152 "2016-03-25T18:07:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/relationship-of-scotus-to-supreme-judicial-court-of-massachusetts-in-this-case-please-clarify/750152/21 "2016-03-28T17:38:30Z")

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> [@Bone](#):
>
> Yes.

Thanks. I’ve been wondering for a while if Heller and McDonald would ever show up in MA courts, but I admit I’m surprised it was a stun gun case instead of a denied LTC case.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/relationship-of-scotus-to-supreme-judicial-court-of-massachusetts-in-this-case-please-clarify/750152/22 "2016-03-30T04:04:00Z")

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> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Scalia was a textualist, not an originalist (though he certainly made up one or two “original” rules of law in _Heller_).

He also claimed to be a certain type of originalist when it came to the Constitution, referring to the “[original meaning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Originalism#Original_meaning)” of a text being how a rational person would have interpreted the text when it was written. He distinguished this from trying to figure out what the writers meant when they wrote it.

The link includes a quotation by Scalia himself who said he was an originalist–albeit secondary to his textualism.

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