And one would not expect the states to get much mention when the constitution is a blueprint for the general government- with limits necessary to keep it from becoming another tyrannical mess as others before it. These guys wanted to put a bridle on the horse team, not the dang driver.
the Tenth Amendment recognizes that no unspecified power belongs to the Federal Government, and that all unspecified power belongs to the States FIRST, and to the people SECOND.
Was the second ammendment not specific enough for you? Was it not SPECIFIC enough!! I suppose California is well within it's right then to deprive me of a 'right' to keep and bear arms according to this interpretation, as long as it's state constitution doesn't protect it (and it doesn't [see Feinstein, Schumer, collectivist, communitarian, feel-good, rub my nuts, corruption, etc.]).
The Fourth ammendment (which you say does not apply to the states) contains something like this:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
So, Californians are not protected (again) from unreasonable searches and seizures per your interpretation, unless California has such a protection written into it's constitution. (At this juncture I'm tempted to ask 'Why would any state with half a brain sign on to a contract with a general government if they had it so good?'--"We're the last, freakin' word on everything, man!")
You still cling to the silly idea that the Bill of Rights was intended to extend beyond a limitation of Federal Power, then please trouble yourself to read Amendment XI, the first one passed to repeal a Supreme Court decision which granted the People the power to sue a State:
Big deal, it says as a Californian I can't sue Nevada through the federal courts. And neither can Nevadans- we're both screwed and must find another alternative. Again, big deal.(some battles between siblings the parents need not involve themselves with).
And if you still haven't disabused yourself of the ridiculous idea that the Bill of Rights was a limit to Federal power, consider this: at the time of ratification, several States had official STATE RELIGIONS, which the first Amendment forbids the Congress to establish.
As well it should, somebody had to get the religion monkey off everybody's back and if it came attached to Federal Highway Funds, they were quite prescient, weren't they?[Don't look now, but Global Warming is fast becoming a religion and the moment the Feds pass a 'remedy', well, there goes the 1st Ammendment. "Shut up and pay your cap and trade fee, beeyach." Can't wait to see the size of the plate they'll be passing around.]
I think this (1st A) is the biggest 'poke-in-the-eye' to the Feds to be found in the BOR.
American colonies needed a parent and they invented MommyDaddy US Government. But, there are some things you should never do to a child- and the Bill of Rights lists everyone of them. Some (you) say the states may do these things? Bad Mommy.
With specific regards to the RKBA, my Commonwealth -- Pennsylvania -- has a stronger affirmation of this right than the Federal Constitution, and our Bill of Rights predates the Federal Constitution (as do the BoRs of many States.) Which is why the States were not in the least concerned that the Federal BoR was weaker in most cases than their own: it doesn't apply to them.
If any of what you were posting applied specifically to the Bill of Rights, the doctrine of Incorporation would not exist. Of course, it does exist and has existed in the breach since before the Civil War (when Justice Taney made it necessary), and it has been invoked numerous times in the 150 years since the XIVth Amendment was created.
Since you don't believe me, please believe Antonin Scalia, the best friend that the Second Amendment has in the Federal Courts. This is what he wrote in Heller, concerning Incorporation and earlier RKBA 2nd Amendment cases (emphasis mine):
With respect to Cruikshank’s continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.”
So, please: take your silly arguments and have them with the foremost conservative jurist in the country, not with me. Scalia is making it clear that the Heller decision applies only to DC, a Federal concern, and that the SCOTUS will need some State or municipality to bring suit in Federal Court in order to get the RKBA Incorporated. And I think he makes it pretty clear that this is what the Court is going to do.
I own lots of guns, am lifetime NRA, and believe as strongly in the RKBA as anybody on this board. But the current understood state of US law isn't simply what I wish it to be, and it doesn't even remotely resemble what you think it does.