My quick response:
Sir,
The statists have conditioned you well.
If the 2nd Amendment applies to the States as well, then all persons, including felons and the mentally handicapped, have a right to bear arms, because the language is pretty clear: "Shall not be infringed." Remember, all powers belonged to the States, and therefore the power to regulate arms belonged to the States prior to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was not written to protect the people from the States. The States were not a concern. The people are close to the States, and have better control over their State Legislatures. The Bill of Rights was written to restrain the federal government to appease the anti-federalists who feared a central government would take away their rights, and eliminate state sovereignty. Even the most liberal scholar, along with the most conservative scholar, believes that the original intent was for the Bill of Rights to apply only to the Federal Government. The liberal simply believes it changed over time. Your argument did not even appear until after the 14th Amendment, where the equal protection clause was misused as opposed to the original intent of those debates during the five months Congress debated over the 14th Amendment (those congressional records are available if you look for them), and the courts performed the "Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States" after that, using arguments similar to yours. In other words, the changing of the Bill of Rights from applying only to the federal government and then over to the States was done by the courts unconstitutionally.
And if you give the federal government that kind of ability over the States, they will use it to shut the States out of the picture even more.
One more thing. If the Bill of Rights applies to the States, then what's the point of State Constitutions?
Look up the original intent of the Bill of Rights, and the Incorporation of the Bill of Rights, and then get back to me.
Blessings,
Douglas V. Gibbs
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