"Could you point me to some links discussing this? I've been doing some looking and thusfar have only been able to come up with one quote (which is an encouraging one from a RKBA standpoint)."
That one quote is FAR more than the "conservative heavyweights" such as Brown or Luttig have ever written on the topic.
Please check out my girl JRB's opinion in Kasler v. Lockyer...
"This case, however, illustrates the illusory nature of the distinction between "fundamental rights" and "areas of social and economic policy." Curiously, in the current dialectic, the right to keep and bear arms - a right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights - is deemed less fundamental than implicit protections the court purports to find in the penumbras of other express provisions. (See, e.g., Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health (1990) 497 U.S. 261, 278-279; Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) 434 U.S. 374, 384-387; Moore v. City of East Cleveland (1977) 431 U.S. 494, 499-500.) But surely, the right to preserve one's life is at least as fundamental as the right to preserve one's privacy. The founding generation certainly viewed bearing arms as an individual right based upon both English common law and natural law, a right logically linked to the natural right of self-defense. Blackstone described self-defense as the "primary law of nature," which could not be taken away by the law of society. (2 Jones's Blackstone (1976) p. 4.) "[T]he peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and the abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defense. . . . The supposed quietude of the good man allures the ruffian; . . . (but) arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world. . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were (the good) deprived of the use of [weapons] . . . the weak will become a prey to the strong." (1 Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine (Conway edit. 1894) p. 56.) Extant political writings of the period repeatedly expressed a dual concern: facilitating the natural right of self-defense and assuring an armed citizenry capable of repelling foreign invaders and quelling tyrannical leaders. After the Civil War a series of enactments, culminating with the Fourteenth Amendment, acknowledged the correlation between self-defense, citizenship, and freedom. Section 14 of the Freedman's Bureau Act, which the 39th Congress passed over the President's veto, provided: "That in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, . . . the right to . . . have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district without respect to race or color or previous condition of slavery. . . ." (Freedman's Bureau Act (July 16, 1866) 14 Stat. 176, italics added; see Halbrook, Second Class Citizenship and the Second Amendment in the District of Columbia (1995) 5 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. 105, 141-150 (Second Class Citizenship).)" Halbrook concludes the Freedman's Bureau Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment leave no doubt that " `the constitutional right to bear arms' is included among the `laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security,' and property, and that `the free enjoyment of such immunities and rights' is to be protected" (Second Class Citizenship, supra, 5 Geo. Mason U. Civ. Rts. L.J. at p. 150) under the Fourteenth Amendment, which would confer citizenship on all persons born in the United States and imbue them with every right of citizenship, including the right to keep and bear arms. (Ibid.) In more recent times, Congress has continued to recognize that the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second and the Fourteenth Amendments. (Pub.L. No. 99-308 (May 19, 1986) 100 Stat. 449.) The judiciary, too, has consistently acknowledged the interplay between express provisions and implicit protections. In Poe v. Ullman (1960) 367 U.S. 497, the seminal case in the Supreme Court's fundamental rights jurisprudence, Justice Harlan, dissenting, argued the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause protects privacy. He claimed the due process clause covered, but was not exclusively limited to, "the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the constitution," including "freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures." (Id. at p. 549 (dis. opn. of Harlan, J.).) The court continues to cite Justice Harlan's enumeration as part of the full scope of liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against state infringement. (Planned Parenthood Southeastern PA v. Casey (1992) 505 U.S. 833, 848-849; Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113, 169 (conc. opn. of Stewart, J.); Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) 381 U.S. 479, 499 (conc. opn. of Goldberg, J.).)"
It is an absolute outrage that Brown was passed over in favor of Miers.