For more than 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it perfectly clear that what it calls “true threats” to harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment.

That means if someone threatens to beat up, kill, or otherwise harm another individual, the threat maker can be prosecuted. But the courts have been divided when it comes to determining if ambiguous, sort-of threats—like “You’ll get yours”—rise to the level of protected speech, and safe from prosecution.