Some parts of the Constitution explicitly limit what States can do. (For example, Article I, section 10, says that no state may pass a bill of attainder or ex post facto law). In a decision in 1830, the Supreme Court court said that the Bill of Rights limited the federal government, but not the states. Later cases applied that explicitly to the 2nd Amendment. Then the 14th amendment came along, and said that states could not violate the "privileges and immunities" of their own citizens. Since the 1920s, the Supreme Court, in a long series of cases, has held that the 14th amendment requires states to comply with most, but not quite all, of the Bill of Rights. There has been no case in the Supreme Court since those decisions which has explicitly answered that question as to the 2nd Amendment.
Perhaps someone should point out that our Constitution DOES in fact limit states in certain areas of enacting laws, specifically those affecting commerce and treaties (and others enumerated in Article I, Section 10), and reserves the regulation and legislative authority in those areas to Congress.
We also have the First Amendment as an example of how the Framers and Amenders intended to limit CONGRESS from violating the civil rights of the people: It says, in opening, "Congress shall make no law respecting..." The Second and following amendments to the Xth DO NOT INCLUDE THAT PHRASE! Those nine amendments following the first are explicit statements of Rights.
The Second Amendment is NOT part of the First Amendment... each and every Amendment, unless modified by a later amendment, stands on its own. The decision cited by the statists on FR as limiting the Bill of Rights to just apply to Congress is based on an erroneous reading of the very amendments it is attempting to limit! They should not have inferred that the phrase from the First Amendment is implied in all later Amendments! Since the rest of the Bill of Rights DOES NOT INCLUDE A PHRASE LIMITATING THEIR APPLICATION TO CONGRESS, they should be read to be inclusive of the Government of the United States and of the Several States.
Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States explicity states: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." This alone extends the immunities and privileges of the Constitution, and consequently the amendments to that Constitution to all citizens, regardless of which state or locality they reside, if they are within the borders of the United States.
Finally, the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution states flatly: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" And since the Preamble to the Constitution explicitly defines "We the People of the United States..." and NOT the several States as those who "...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.", then it follows that the Rights held and retained by the people cannot be abridged, infringed or limited by the subordinate States!