[jlogajan]

Go read the Tenth Amendment again. It says that state's rights do not include those rights denied to the state by the Constitution.

You seem to need a little history lesson in how this whole issue has played out the last 200 years. It was originally held that the US Constitution only limited federal authority, not state authority. After the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court grudgingly started applying US Constitutional limits on state governments as well. Even to this day there is nonuniform application of US Constitutional restrictions on state governments versus the federal government.

The issue is not nearly as neatly settled even today as you seem to think, and there exists real division on the question even in conservative factions.

[Boot Hill]

jlogajan asserts:   "It was originally held that the US Constitution only limited federal authority, not state authority."

That is patently false. It has never been held that the US Constitution only limited federal authority, not state authority. There are numerous articles, sections and clauses of the Constitution that explicitly limit state authority including, most prominently, Art. 1, Sec. 10, entitled "Powers Prohibited to the States". That is why the phrase, "...nor prohibited by it to the states...", was included in the Tenth Amendment.

jlogajan condescends:   "You seem to need a little history lesson..."

Before you sanctimoniously set yourself up any kind of teacher, you should at least learn the basics about what the Constitution, does in fact, say. Your demonstrably false assertion that the Constitution does not limit state authority, is a case in point.

--Boot Hill

[tpaine]

It was originally held that the US "Constitution only limited federal authority, not state authority.
After the 14th amendment, the Supreme Court grudgingly started applying US Constitutional limits on state governments as well. Even to this day there is nonuniform application of US Constitutional restrictions on state governments versus the federal government." -jlogajan-


Barron v Baltimore in 1833 was the erronious decision that claimed states were not limited by the BOR's.
- The 14th was ratified, in part, to correct this decision and to clarify that rights to life, liberty and property could not be infringed upon by state or local governments.
-- Correcting gun rights violations by southern states on freed slaves were an important part of the ratification debates of 1868, and played a major role in getting the amendment passed. Thus, the 2nd does not need to be 'incorporated'. - It has always applied to state/local government.

[tpaine]

. Following the Civil War, the Southern States reenacted the slave codes which made it illegal for blacks to exercise basic civil rights, including the possession of firearms. Congress responded by passing the Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866, which provided:
the right . . . to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district without respect to race or color or previous condition of slavery.
14 Statutes at Large 176-77 (1866). This was approved by the same votes of over two-thirds of members of Congress who voted in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment. Senator Jacob Howard, when introducing the Amendment, explained that its purpose was to protect "personal rights" such as "the right to keep and bear arms" from State infringement. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2765 (May 23, 1866). See "The Civil Rights and Freedmen's Bureau Acts and the Proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment," in Halbrook, Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms.


More info on the 14th and the 2nd -- thanks to JW07:

Stephen Halbrook, John Ashcroft and the second amendment
77 posted on 12/06/2002 6:24 PM PST by jwalsh07