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You gentlemen certainly deserve praise and thanks for conducting a thorough, interesting, dogged, and mostly civil debate about the 14th Amendment.

Before I get into what I want to ask, I think we can agree on a few things:

The words in the Constitution and Amendments must be given the meanings they had when ratified. In other words, since meanings change over time in a living language such as English, we cannot arbitrarily apply 1868 meanings to words used in 1789, nor vice versa.
We must give harmonious effect and meaning to every word and phrase used in the Constitution (as amended) standing alone if at all possible. Only if, due to perceived ambiguity, we cannot do that, may we go outside of the document to attempt to give its provisions and language meaning in attempting to judicially construe it.
If our predecessors have judicially construed the document after finding parts of it ambiguous, we must consider their conclusions, but we are not bound by them, and we are entitled to consider the document de novo.

I think we can also agree on certain definitions of English words as meaning the same now as in 1789 and all intervening times:

arms means weapons
weapon means any instrument of offense or defense used in fighting
liberty means the power to act as one thinks fit

I hope we can also agree that the broad principles of the Constitution are meaningless if they are not applicable individually. IOW, it's meaningless for it to say nobody can be deprived of life by a state without due process if a particular individual can be.

Living in Chicago, he is forbidden by law from having a handgun, thus he is not at liberty to secure one for his defense. However, he may have other weapons, such as a brass lamp, bowling trophy, crowbar, etc.
Living in Texas, he must prove to the state that he is competent with a handgun, pay a fee, and wait for a considerable time before he is legally able to have one always available for his defense. However, like living in Chicago, he can have other weapons if he chooses.
Living in California, he has the restrictions of Texas plus he must also obtain the arbitrary permission of a regional law enforcement officer before he is legally able to always have a handgun available for his defense.
Living in Arizona, he can openly carry a handgun, but he cannot conceal it in his car, briefcase, or on his person without first going through steps similar to those applicable in Texas.
Living in Vermont, he can simply do whatever he wants to have a handgun available for his defense.

Obviously, our exemplar citizen should live in Vermont if he thinks having a handgun is important to preserving his life. Otherwise he will have to get along with a concealed brass lamp, brick, or other object that's not expressly classified as a restricted weapon in his locale.

It's not necessary to navigate the legal minefield of a VT citizen vacationing in CA carrying a concealed pistol to see the manifold Constitutional problems these disparate laws present, and all of that is without ever addressing the Second Amendment.

Among other arguments, I would attack the disparate regional laws infringing the individual right protected by the 2nd Amendment through the 14th Amendment's prohibition against a state's depriving a citizen of the liberty to peaceably act to protect himself because it cannot be argued that a law enforcement agency is either able or obligated to protect him, especially since it cannot act against a potential criminal until a criminal act has been performed, and it has been historically unable to prevent criminal acts with handguns or criminals from having handguns.

The 2nd Amendment does not NEED to be incorporated into the 14th Amendment's ambit through general arguments. Applying specific facts in a case (perhaps U.S. v. Haney) may do the job quite nicely.

What I want to ask is for you to direct your formidable legal and analytical skills to the propositions and arguments suggested here.

You gentlemen certainly deserve praise and thanks for conducting a thorough, interesting, dogged, and mostly civil debate about the 14th Amendment.

OH MY GOD, WE'RE BEING WATCHED! GET HIM!!! Oh, wait, this is a public forum.

Seriously, I appreciate your kind words. So to start with, I want to point out that that issue over same-sex marriages had to do with Article IV of the original Constitution, not the 14th amendment. This is what Section 1 says: "Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof." In other words, if two people get married in Vermont, California would have to accept their VT certificate as valid. But it does not explicitly say that California has to treat them as married persons, if the marriage was conducted in a manner contrary to California law. It just means that the actual facts contained on a person's certificate, or license, or whatever, must be accepted as prima facie evidence. It's then up to the state law to determine if those facts constitute acceptable criteria for being able to exercise some privilege. Hence, if some state allows polygamy, or incestuous marriages, other states wouldn't then be obliged to recognize the "marriages" that result. The catch, however, is in the second sentence of Section 1: "And the Congress may by general Laws prescibe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings may be proved, and the Effect thereof." So Congress could require (even if the Constitution doesn't explicitly) that each state treat every married couple from every other state as being legitimately married, regardless of what its laws say on the matter. But Congress has to take that initiative. It would be the same with regard to any other type of licensing. I would guess that the only way for a state to resist that kind of pressure would be to eliminate licenses for a particular type of activity altogether, and make it completely illegal. That way, Congress would then be unable to force Georgia to accept prostitution licenses from Nevada.

By the way, I was just making this whole thing up as I was typing (though I have given it some thought in the past), so I have no idea how valid it is. Maybe Ned could clear things up further.

Also, I want to address something else you wrote:

The words in the Constitution and Amendments must be given the meanings they had when ratified. In other words, since meanings change over time in a living language such as English, we cannot arbitrarily apply 1868 meanings to words used in 1789, nor vice versa.

I don't know if this is what you intended to say, but my view is that when the 14th amendment copies a phrase like "due process" directly from a portion of the Constitution that was written in 1789, the 1789 understanding of the phrase should prevail. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that the entire Constitution, in all of its amendments, should be understood more or less from a 1780's-type standpoint (except in cases where a word clearly has a more modern meaning), and that it's the responsibility of those who draft amendments to make sure that their language is largely consistent with the language that went before it. In other words, the Constitution should read like a single document as much as possible, rather than just a collection of laws.

There may come a time when the language of the Constitution becomes substantially less comprehensible as language evolves further, and at that time, it may be necessary to pass an amendment "translating" the document to a more modern dialect, though I can just imagine the can of worms that would open.

I think we can agree on a few things:
The words in the Constitution and Amendments must be given the meanings they had when ratified. In other words, since meanings change over time in a living language such as English, we cannot arbitrarily apply 1868 meanings to words used in 1789, nor vice versa. We must give harmonious effect and meaning to every word and phrase used in the Constitution (as amended) standing alone if at all possible. Only if, due to perceived ambiguity, we cannot do that, may we go outside of the document to attempt to give its provisions and language meaning in attempting to judicially construe it.

Exactly what has happened, as we can see, even on this thread. 'Perceived' ambiguities rule the debate. We must, like Black, go back to history, to the writers ratification debates to counter these erronious perceptions.

If our predecessors have judicially construed the document after finding parts of it ambiguous, we must consider their conclusions, but we are not bound by them, and we are entitled to consider the document de novo.

Indeed, -- the 14ths lanquage is NOT ambiguous in its total context. This is a manufactured dispute, made by statists who have various single issue agendas.

I think we can also agree on certain definitions of English words as meaning the same now as in 1789 and all intervening times:
arms means weapons
weapon means any instrument of offense or defense used in fighting
liberty means the power to act as one thinks fit
I hope we can also agree that the broad principles of the Constitution are meaningless if they are not applicable individually. IOW, it's meaningless for it to say nobody can be deprived of life by a state without due process if a particular individual can be.

Yep, -- 'states rights' advocates lose sight of the fact that individual rights come first, and states must use their powers to defend them, not to control them.

Scenario: A legally unimpaired citizen has been threatened with imminent bodily harm or death by known persons or their unknown associates. (Note: the following characterizations of weapons laws may not be accurate, and they're only related as examples.) Living in Chicago, he is forbidden by law from having a handgun, thus he is not at liberty to secure one for his defense. However, he may have other weapons, such as a brass lamp, bowling trophy, crowbar, etc. Living in Texas, he must prove to the state that he is competent with a handgun, pay a fee, and wait for a considerable time before he is legally able to have one always available for his defense. However, like living in Chicago, he can have other weapons if he chooses.
Living in California, he has the restrictions of Texas plus he must also obtain the arbitrary permission of a regional law enforcement officer before he is legally able to always have a handgun available for his defense.
Living in Arizona, he can openly carry a handgun, but he cannot conceal it in his car, briefcase, or on his person without first going through steps similar to those applicable in Texas.
Living in Vermont, he can simply do whatever he wants to have a handgun available for his defense.
Obviously, our exemplar citizen should live in Vermont if he thinks having a handgun is important to preserving his life. Otherwise he will have to get along with a concealed brass lamp, brick, or other object that's not expressly classified as a restricted weapon in his locale.

-- Obviously, we should live in a republic that recognizes an overall RKBA's, as per the 2nd. --- One in which the states & federal courts/governments act as checks & balances on ANY infringment of this basic right.

It's interesting that when Vermont and Hawaii appeared close to recognizing same sex unions as "marriages" in the legal sense, other states got all worked up because of a 14th Amendment interpretation that they would be forced to also recognize such unions as marriages.
It's not necessary to navigate the legal minefield of a VT citizen vacationing in CA carrying a concealed pistol to see the manifold Constitutional problems these disparate laws present, and all of that is without ever addressing the Second Amendment.
Among other arguments, I would attack the disparate regional laws infringing the individual right protected by the 2nd Amendment through the 14th Amendment's prohibition against a state's depriving a citizen of the liberty to peaceably act to protect himself because it cannot be argued that a law enforcement agency is either able or obligated to protect him, especially since it cannot act against a potential criminal until a criminal act has been performed, and it has been historically unable to prevent criminal acts with handguns or criminals from having handguns.
The 2nd Amendment does not NEED to be incorporated into the 14th Amendment's ambit through general arguments. Applying specific facts in a case (perhaps U.S. v. Haney) may do the job quite nicely.

-- 'Incorporation' is now needed only because the issue has been so thoroughly pettifogged over the years by so many diverse groups for so many self-serving reasons.
Even then, if incorporated, -- it will not be accepted.

-- The RKBA, like roe v wade, is an emotional issue to those who are driven to feel that they MUST exert control over their peers. These types/groups of people do not understand the very basis of a constitutional republic.

This basis is for maximum individual freedom, and minimum state control. - Our control types seem to have it backwards at times.

I agree with the statement that "[t]he words in the Constitution and Amendments must be given the same meaning they had when ratified" so long as it is recognized that some of the words and phrases in the Constitution delegate to future interpreters the duty to interpret and apply them in the context of the facts, conditions and standards prevailing at the time of the future interpretation. Take for example a statute adopted in 1700 that requires all parents to provide their children with a "suitable education" and "appropriate health care." While the words might have the same literal meaning in 2000 as they did in 1700, changing standards and circumstances might require that parents behave differently in 2000 than than they did in 1700 in order to comply with the statute. I interpret the term "due process of law" in the Fourteenth Amendment in the same fashion. While the literal meaning of the term may not have changed since the 1860's, its practical meaning has changed as conditions and standards have changed.

If the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause is interpreted to impose a limitation on the power of states in the area of their substantive laws (as opposed to their procedural laws), then the due process clause might be interpreted to require states to comply with the Second Amendment. The extent to which the application of the Second Amendment would limit the power of states to adopt anti-gun laws is another matter.

The Supreme Court's experiences with "substantive due process" have often been very controversial (e.g., the Lochner era, Roe v. Wade) and there are many people who believe that "substantive due process" is a misuse and an impermissible construction of the due process clause. However, it seems clear that every current member of the Supreme Court believes that the due process clause includes within its meaning a limitation on the states' substantive laws and practices. (See, e.g., Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000).)