Only if the SCOTUS tells them they do. :)
(Which it hasn't)
I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't change the way things are. States have a right to prevent people from bearing arms. Period.
States have no rights. States have power.
WRONG! You are confusing the "power" or the "ability" with the "right". It's not the same thing.
In practical terms they may have the power, but they do not have the right. States, and governments in general, do not have rights, only powers.
In Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), the Suprme Court did rule, in a case where the actual ruling was that the states could regulate or prohibit drilling as a military organization, that:
It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States; and, in view of this prerogative of the General Government, as well as of its general powers, the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view [the Second Amendment] prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the General Government.
So the Supreme Court disagrees with your notion that "States have a right to prevent people from bearing arms. Period". They only indicate it is allowed for convicted felons, not the just the general public. Notice also that is even absent the second amendment. The only other Post 14th Amendment supreme court decision, other than Miller, related to the second amendment's protections was Lewis v. U.S., 445 U.S. 55 (1980), which involved a federal law prohibiting possesion of firearms by convicted felons. The court ruled, not unreasonably, that second amendment rights, like others, could be removed by a felony conviction under due process
The court upheld Lewis' conviction, holding: (a)...the fact that there are remedies available to a convicted felon - removal of the firearm disability by a qualifying pardon or the Secretary of the Treasury's consent, as specified in the Act, or a challenge to the prior conviction in an appropriate court proceeding - suggests that Congress intended that the defendant clear his status before obtaining a firearm, thereby fulfilling Congress' purpose to keep firearms away from persons classified as potentially irresponsible and dangerous.
(b) The firearm regulatory scheme at issue here is consonant with the concept of equal protection embodied in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, since Congress could rationally conclude that any felony conviction, even an allegedly invalid one, is a sufficient basis on which to prohibit the possession of a firearm.
Note however that the court also implies that the person should be able to have the disability remmoved, but currently this is not allowed, only because Congress refuses to fund the BATF to conduct the necessary investigations.
The Miller case,( U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)) often quoted out of context, and not very coherent in the first place, basically said that the lower court should not have recognized that a short barrelled shotgun bore any relationship to maintaince of a well-regulated militia, absent presentation of evidence to that effect. They defined militia thusly:
The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
They also ruled that only such keeping and bearing arms which is protected and that "It is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense." In reality , short barrelled shotguns were then, as now, in Army and National Guard units. They had been used in the Philipines, probably by Pershings troops in the Mexican Expedition, and most certainly in the trenches of WW-I, where they were called "Trench Sweepers or Trench Brooms" and also where the Germans maintained that they were uncivilized terror weapons. :) They were also used quite extensively by the US Marines in the jungle warfare of the varous "Banana Wars" of the period. The Supreme never ruled on the actual Constitutional merits of the National Firearms Act, other than to indicate that the second amendment only protected militarily usefull arms, but rather sent the case back to the lower court for "further proceedings" which could have meant simply introduction of evidence that short barrelled shotguns were militarily useful, but which in any event were never held because Miller had been murdered and Layton his codefendent had copped a plea and been put on probation. The Act prinicipally concerned itself with machine guns, and it would have been interesting to see the Court rule that it was beyond judicial notice that those weren't militarily useful, but that aspect of the law has never been addressed by the Court.
As Free men and women, no group on earth has the legitimate "right" to prevent us from bearing arms.
No man, no government, no army, no organization has the "right" to prevent us from being armed.
The only legimitate government is that which is organized for the sole purpose of defending our Rights as Free men and women. Any government that does not exist for that purpose, or any government that fails to defend those Rights, is totally illegitimate and a Free people are under NO obligation to obey it.
The moment a state claims to have the "right" (BTW, only individuals can have Rights) to infringe upon our liberties, is the moment that government becomes totally illegitimate.
Unfortunately you are correct, and what you are saying is going over everyone's head.
The folks on this thread are well-meaning, but they do not realize that the SC has the power to uphold a newly ratified slavery law in any state (assuming it ever got to them).
I gotta laugh at these folks - they don't realize the the power of the federal judiciary (I'm including the SC) has been our ruination for the last 70 years.
If the Founding Fathers had a blind spot, it was their lack of understanding that giving 9 men in robes the power to do anything was problematic.