Amen Judge, you "get it" regarding the authors' intent for the 2nd Amendment, too bad that most of your colleagues on the bench don't.
If Judge Gould had been on the SCOTUS instead of Kennedy the four originalists would probably not have been forced to water down the majority opinion in order to get Kennedy's vote to uphold Heller. I believe we would have gotten much more extensive protection for our 2nd Amendment rights if Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, and Alito had been able to get one more vote for a decision that would have more fully confirmed the original intent of the authors. But in order to get even as much as they did the originalists had to compromise with Kennedy, and that compromise left some holes big enough for gun grabbing politicians like Obama and the D.C. officials to drive a truck through. In fact, although Mr. Heller was able to get the gun that was the catalyst that brought his case to the district court to begin with, the D.C. Rats have already come up with a slate of new regulations carefully designed to slip through those holes, and those regulations are still keeping most law abiding D.C. residents from legally acquiring and keeping handguns.
What we got in Heller was a big step in the right direction but it allows government to regulate gun possession in ways the authors never intended, such as licensing gun owners, registering guns, banning certain types of guns, and requiring government's permission to carry a gun anywhere except on personally owned property. Heller was and is a very important and very welcome decision, but the sad fact is that there are still 22,000 restrictive gun laws on the books all across the US and practically every one of them is a violation of the 2nd Amendment as the authors intended it to be read. Our right to own a gun is hanging by a slender thread comprised of the lives of 5 men. If any one of the SCOTUS members who upheld Heller dies or is forced to retire by ill health while Obama is in office Heller will be one of the first, if not the very first, decision that will be reversed by a reconstructed SCOTUS. Scalia is 72, Kennedy is 70, Thomas is 59, and Obama may be in office for another 7-2/3 years, so don't get too comfortable with Heller as a reason to believe that a freedom-hating liberal government will abide by the 2nd Amendment.
I'm more optimistic. Think of the right to vote. There's no poll tax any more. All these licensing and registration schemes will go out the window when the gov't can't charge fees for them. Why should folks in Vermont and Alaska have more Second Amendment rights than folks in gun grabbing havens? Prohibitions for violent felons and those who are a threat to themselves and others are the only prohibitions that make sense.