[robertpaulsen]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability of the weapon for a state militia?

A gunsmith? A military officer? A historian? Miller, if he lived? Sarah Brady?

Who is going to get on the stand and say, "This weapon is suitable for all state militias and this weapon is not", realizing that the U.S. Supreme Court will be relying on that?

[Dead Corpse]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability of the weapon for a state militia?

If they are asking that question, then they are too stupid to sit as judges. A heavy rock can be an improvised militia weapon. Your bare hands can be.

If you had one shred of honesty left in you, you'd understand this without having to be told. As it is, your are nothing but a troll.

[Ken H]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability of the weapon for a state militia?

Wouldn't it be up to the defendant and plaintiff to provide expert witnesses? I would think any number would be suitable - military historians, for example.

[El Gato]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability of the weapon for a state militia?

Possibly several different folks, maybe some for each side. A military historian and/or officer (who could easily be the same person) would be a good choice. The testimony would be to answer the question "had such a weapon been used in militia/military service or could it be" The question to "has it" is clearly yes, the answer to "could it" might depend on the person. If the officer was from the calvary, still using horses in 1939, and even later in some cases, including the US Army after WW-II in patrolling the inter-german and other borders in Europe, the answer quite likely would be yes. Of course the real answer was to come in just a few years, as related by the US first circuit court in Cases

the rule of the Miller case, if intended to be comprehensive and complete would seem to be already outdated, in spite of the fact that it was formulated only three and a half years ago, because of the well known fact that in the so called "Commando Units" some sort of military use seems to have been found for almost any modern lethal weapon. In view of this, if the rule of the Miller case is general and complete, the result would follow that, under present day conditions, the federal government would be empowered only to regulate the possession or use of weapons such as a flintlock musket or a matchlock harquebus. But to hold that the Second Amendment limits the federal government to regulations concerning only weapons which can be classed as antiques or curiosities, -almost any other might bear some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia unit of the present day,-is in effect to hold that the limitation of the Second Amendment is absolute. Another objection to the rule of the Miller case as a full and general statement is that according to it Congress would be prevented by the Second Amendment from regulating the possession or use by private persons not present or prospective members of any military unit, of distinctly military arms, such as machine guns, trench mortars, anti-tank or anti-aircraft guns, even though under the circumstances surrounding such possession or use it would be inconceivable that a private person could have any legitimate reason for having such a weapon. It seems to us unlikely that the framers of the Amendment intended any such result.

But of course, that is exactly the result intended by the Framers of the Second Amendment. But the first Circut substituted its policy preferences in place of the judgement of the Supreme Court and the written words in the Constitution itself, not to mention the other writings of the Founding Fathers.

[steve-b]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability of the weapon for a state militia?

The same people they ask about any other questions of fact that affect a case before them -- the expert witnesses supplied by the parties to the case. Presumably, the expert witnesses will have different takes on various points, in which case it falls to the court to decide who is more credible.

[ctdonath2]

Who should the lower court have asked to testify on the suitability

Your difficulty in answering that question belies the misguidedness thereof. The more people of your persuasion try to draw a line, the harder they find doing so.

Maybe there really isn't a line.

The Liberator pistol is, by your published reasoning, about as "unsuitable" as possible (very short smooth barrel, modest caliber, single shot, crummy quality, highly concealable, slow complicated reload, etc.) - yet a million were made in WWII precisely for "militia" (i.e.: anybody able & willing to fight in a declared war) purposes. Even a musket or sub-18" shotgun would be far preferable. Think about that: our government ordered production of a million of them specifically for our military allies.