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I think the first thing that should be noted is that Alan Gura was treated very deferentially. He was not interrupted very often and when he was, he was allowed to complete his thoughts. The same cannot be said of the States Attorney.
The older gentleman was Judge Aldisert (appointed by Pres. Johnson, in 1968. He is 94). If you paid attention, he was definitely in mind of handing the State the Kachalsky decision, lock stock and barrel.
The judge you heard the most from was, Judge Hardiman. He was prepared. He literally tore into the States Attorney. While she avoided the obvious traps, she floundered all the way through her argument. Note that she denies that the intention of the law was to limit guns on the street. Even after Hardiman stated, "it is inescapable."
You had to listen closely to hear Judge Stark. See the file at about 56 minutes, when he tries to corner the lady into admitting the State only recognizes, "in the home."
I think we can count on judge Aldisert to find for the State. Although judge Stark handed the NRA a defeat on 07-27-2012 (Doe v. Wilmington Housing Authority - #53 on the list), I can't really tell where he is at on this issue.
We can hope that Hardiman and Stark decide for us. Such a 2-1 decision would mean a definite circuit split and pretty much guarantee cert in Kachalsky. A defeat here would more than likely mean that the SCOTUS would deny cert.
So, while we are waiting on cert stage completion for Kalchalsky, we can now hope that either CA3 or CA4 (or both) decide in our favor, pushing the probability of a grant of cert in Kachalsky closer to 1.
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