I hated to read that, because I don't doubt you. It taints my admiration of Scalia.
We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.
As you stated, SBS and automatic rifles are not "typically possessed by law-abiding citizens" because they are essentially banned. So we are stuck with this circular logic.
...the short barrel shotgun is within the ambit of the 2nd amendment, if "this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense," with the Miller decision to reverse and send the case back to the lower court being justified by SCOTUS professing ignorance on this point.
Ignorance due to the fact that no one was present to argue for Miller in this case. Of course it would have been easy to show that SBS were indeed in use by the military. And the Court was honest enough not to assume facts not presented to the Court, even though it may well have been common knowledge.
Thanks for that post.
The taint belongs to the institution. Scalia did the best he could with what he had. The law (and all the institutions of the FedGov that it apologizes for, enables and supports) is so full of dishonesty piled up on dishonesty, there is no tidy way to dial it back.
The dismantling of the RKBA has been systematic by the hierarchy of courts. Good court / bad court version of good cop / bad cop. Sometimes the SCOTUS is the dishonest one, sometimes it allows the lower courts to do the dirty work. It's all about power and control being wrested from the people and placed in the hands of a system that need not answer to the people. Globalism depends on this.