Sensible people, who know what rights are, don't make comments about it being OK to ban guns based on statistics. Especially not in a case as important as this one.
Opening hand you say... This was like throwing in all your cards before the first bet has been made.
Appeasing the leftists' irrational queasiness about machine guns and hand grenades is exactly what you do in a case as important as this one.
What if the machine gun question, which is not even before the court in this case, was the difference between a 9-0 individual right ruling and a 7-2 individual right ruling? Or the difference between 5-4 and 4-5?
Anything the court says at this point about machine guns is dicta and can be challenged later, especially if there's a strong majority individual right ruling to go with the phrase, "shall not be infringed."
This case is about operable handguns kept in the home for self-defense. Period. If the court wishes to expound on machine guns and grenades, as it appears they do, that might make future challenges on those subjects a bit more difficult to press, but a clear individual right ruling would still be a watershed moment in history, and would be a firm foundation on which to sweep aside vast swaths of oppressive gun law across the nation regardless of what happens with machine guns and grenades down the road.