Did you listen to the hearing? I did - from beginning to end. Just as listening to JWright's "sermons" provides much more insight & context than just reading his words, so too was listening to the comments/questions posed by the liberal members of the court.
IMHO, based on their posture, inflection, line of questioning, etc, is that one simply cannot escape the central conclusion that the 2A is an individual right not limited to soldiering.
Where they may differ to varying degrees is the legislative ability to specifically place certain restrictions in lieu of public safety. That may well indeed bring the final vote down to 5-4, but it will 9-0 on individual right.
I”ve read the transcript of lots of SCOTUS orals, including this one. Souter and Ginsberg have a habit of sounding one way, writing another. They just haven’t found the hook on which they want to hang their argument. Yet.
I could be wrong, I’m just going from experience of watching the SCOTUS. Thomas, as always, remains quiet and bases his opinion on the written briefs.
If I’m wrong and all nine justices agree that the 2nd recognizes an individual right, you’re going to see a rather large contingent of the left just have a stroke. They’ve got 40+ years of sophistry tied up in the “collective rights” argument, and to have their liberal justices agree that there is in individual right will cause heads at the NYT and other left-wing papers to just explode.