I think that the United States has no legitimate authority to regulate the private ownership of firearms.
To paraphrase Vin Suprynowicz, if a 14 year old girl wants to walk into Home Depot and buy a chain-fed, fully automatic machine gun and pay cash, there should be no identification to check, no background check to pass, no waiting period to expire, no taxes to pay, and no registration to fill out.
A more difficult question is whether states can legitimately regulate private ownership of firearms. Ultimately I think the answer is no, since I am of the belief that the Bill of Rights binds the individual states as well as the Federal government.
Well, we agree on that one.
Thanks for the education on the wording of some of the constitution. Still think it applies to only US citizens though.