My understanding is that Bork is dead-on right about that. The 2nd Amendment was a guarantee that the federal government wouldn't tell the states how to organize their militias (it couldn't dictate who could keep what weapons where)--but that the states COULD. The 2nd Amendment is not an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Bill of Rights was meant only to apply to the federal government, not the states. Bork is HONEST, he doesn't invent a 2nd Amendment individual right just because he thinks guns are cool and everyone should have the right to them.
Likewise, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th amendments applied only the federal government and not the states. When the 14th amendment was passed, only the "due process" clause similar to that in the 5th amendment was applied to the states. Over time, judges defined "due process" to mean, among other things, most of the stuff from the the 1st and 3rd-8th amendments as necessary to a just society. The right to keep and bear arms has not been considered one of those rights. Thus, states are still free (as envisioned by the Founding Fathers) to dictate gun laws.
The 9th Amendment was added as additional reassurance of what all the founding fathers already knew: That We the People individually and as States possess certain UNALIENABLE rights, and that the listing of some rights and protections and limitations in the Constitution does NOT disparage those rights in any way.
Each one of us possesses the UNALIENABLE right to EFFECTIVE SELF DEFENSE both against criminals and, when necessary, against despotic or criminal government at any level. That unalienable right is not disparaged by the Second Amendment or any other portion of the Constitution.
So even if your view is correct (and I suspect many will disagree) no one should take your view to mean that either individual States or the Federal Government may obstruct the right to or the means of effective self defense away from individuals. And the bottom line: Effective self-defense at this time requires nothing less than firearms, and sometime more.
Of course you agree on this basis that even States may not prohibit the personal ownership of firearms, right?
No doubt you are correct about how judges have ruled, but by what logic could the first amendment be "incorporated", but not the second? The second amendment is stated in much more absolute terms than the first: the second amendment says the right of the *people* to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed [there is no suggestion that some levels of government can still infringe that right]; the first amendment restricts the types of laws that *congress* can pass [there is no suggestion that this applies to the states]. If just one of these two amendments protected the rights of the people against state and local governments, it would have to be the second.
You are certainly not alone in making that argument. And the scary thing is that people who make that argument can find intelluctually vapid or politically active judges to agree.
The position you hold does not comport with reality in a legal or a moral sense.
I don't ask the favor of a reply or argument, and intend to not return to this thread.