Letters of M&R let ship owners go out and play pirate against the pirates. It neither restricted a Right, nor granted them permission to arm.
Agreed. Furthermore, Miller was deliberately "wrongly" decided. How can I prove this? Easily...
The "arm" in contention in the Miller case was a sawed-off shotgun, was it not? The contention was that a sawed-off shotgun had absolutely no use on the battlefield, which was patently untrue, at the time Miller was decided.
This was during the period between WW1 and WW2, and during the trench warfare of WW1, it was discovered that the "standard" infantry rifles of the day (of all belligerent nations in the conflict), with bayonet affixed, were too unwieldy within the close confines of the defensive trenches used extensively in WW1. This led to wild melees with hand to hand weapons, for the most part, until the AEF entered the fray in 1917. Unlike their European counterparts on either side, the AEF came equipped with a fair number of shotguns (mostly Winchester Model 97's, a goodly number of which were "modified" by good old Yankee ingenuity to serve in these same trenches.)
The aftermath of WW1 saw the invention, across the board (from all the belligerents in WW1, and other nations as well), of a "suitable replacement" for the sawed-off shotguns used by US doughboys in the trenches of the Western Front, as the weapon had only been previously known as an arm of bandits and bravos, neither fitting, nor suitable for soldiers, even though it had proved effective. That "suitable replacement" was the submachinegun, or machine pistol.
I find it difficult, if not outright impossible to believe that the Justices which heard Miller, nor the attorneys which argued it, were unaware of the facts, as many of them either were, or had relatives who were, combat veterans of the AEF and knew the real truth...
the infowarrior
“I've read Miller. The Fed Gov had no just power, powers given by the Constitution, to even rule on the issue. The case should have been thrown out. Period.”
Now you are applying your powerless opinion of what the 2dn means in place of the very real meaning as perverted by the imperial court. What you or I believe is of no consequence. What the Court wrote drives the law.