Re: your,
"The question is -- did the BOR apply to the states before the inc. process? No. It did not."
Well, if the federal gummint acknowledged and recognized that the people had a pre-existing right to keep and bear arms, the application of Article VI, para 2, forces the states to recognize the same right. Why and how? Because anything that is in state constitutions and judges opinions to the contrary are null and void by virtue of a state's ratification of the Federal Constitution. And that was in effect from Day One. And of course, the Second Amendment keeps Congress from violating the right as well. Heh.
So what to do?
I guess we survive the best we can. Some will survive better than others, for they obey a higher law, I suspect. The law of survival. Sometimes it's a jungle out there.
Note that I'm not all that interested in having an arsenal full of guns. One for each reason and season is suffient for me, unless I wanted to deal in guns.
I have addressed this several times. If the fed gov legally passes a law that it is legally entitled to pass (raising taxes for the army)then it is the law of the land. The supremacy clause does not say that the fed gov may pass any law that it chooses. The suprem cl does not in any way address, modify, expand, contract, or define JURISDICTION. And jurisdiction is what we are talking about. PLEASE answer the following q's. I have no idea why nobody will touch these.
1. If the BOR was intended to apply to the states, why did we have the inc. doctrine some 80 years after the cons came into being?
2. Why does the 1st amend say "CONGRESS shall make no law"?
3. Why did VA and others have state supported churches well after the cons came into being?
4. Did you not read the quotation from Barron v. Baltimore posted by that other guy?
5. If you disagree with that ruling, you still must accept as historical fact that for 80 years, the FED GOV, the Supreme Court, AND the state govs operated under the assumption that the BOR did not apply to the states. Were they all wrong for 80 years?
And address James Madison...
In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.
James Madison, Federalist 39 (emphasis in original
More from the Framers...
An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers might remain in them would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 32 (emphasis in original)
And more...
Do these principles, in fine, require that the powers of the general government should be limited, and that, beyond this limit, the States should be left in possession of their sovereignty and independence? We have seen that in the new government, as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction.
James Madison, Federalist 40 (emphasis added)
And still more...
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State government are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments in times of peace and security.
James Madison, Federalist 45