You keep talking about states protecting rights. Protect from whom? the state? X will protect me from X? WTF? If the state will not infringe my right, then I'm not particularly concerned about the state protecting that right from the state infringing that right.
The 2nd Amendment tells the federal government very explicitly "you do NOT have the power to infringe this right" - emphasizing the fact that the federal gov't was never given such a power. By what source does a state have a power to infringe RKBA?
Even though RKBA is protected here in Texas.
I'm still waiting for one instance of a State over-riding a power delegated to the Fed Gov via the Constitution. I'm hearing a lot of crickets, but that is about it....
From the state constitution. Written by elected representatives of the people of that state. Capable of being amended by the people of that state.
The state is (was) quite powerful. The Founding Fathers wanted it that way, and gave very few powers to the federal government. The states retained the rest.
The states could, and did, prevent people from speaking (until 1925), prevent them from assembly (until 1937), shut down newspapers (until 1931), establish a state religion and make you pay for it (until 1940), search your belongings without a warrant (until 1949) and admit it as evidence (until 1961), no right to an attorney (until 1963), etc. Provided, of course, that those rights were not protected by the state constitution.
Oh, and they could also "infringe on your RKBA", too. Still can.