This whole case strikes me as ridiculously simple.
The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and all state and federal laws MUST comply with the Constitution or else they are instantly void. Could a state pass a law allowing warrantless searches, for example? Or reject the 13th Amendment and bring back slavery? Of course not! The Constitution is Supreme and all the states agreed to comply with the Constitution when they ratifed.
The Second Amendment, therefore, applies to all states and supercedes all other state law. If the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the states, then neither does the 3rd, so make room for those troops you’ll be housing! And how many states ignored the 18th Amendment and allowed liquor sales during Prohibition? Supreme Law is self-explanatory.
If the Supreme Court says Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the states, then we’ve got a whole raft of problems!
The rights set forth in the Bill of Rights inhere in persons, not institutions (e.g., states). How, then, can a state presume to deny a citizen a right that is acknowledged as such in the Constitition.? The exercise of a right may be regulated, but not to the point of nullification of the basic right.
“The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land and all state and federal laws MUST comply with the Constitution or else they are instantly void. Could a state pass a law allowing warrantless searches, for example? Or reject the 13th Amendment and bring back slavery? Of course not! The Constitution is Supreme and all the states agreed to comply with the Constitution when they ratifed.”
Actually, the Bill of Rights was passed only to limit the power of the federal government, in order to persuade the various states to ratify the Constitution. The states were not concerned about limiting their own power. As a result, the Bill of Rights was never held to apply to the states until the 20th century, when a series of SCOTUS decisions starting in 1925 looked beyond the original intent of the founders in order to apply a number of these rights to the states. The Second Amendment is only now being so examined.
There are many people who feel that it is wrong for SCOTUS to look beyond the original intent of those who wrote the Bill of Rights. They often refer to those judges who have expanded these rights as “activist” judges. It is a valid position, but Second Amendment rights are so vital that I think I have to side with the “activists” on this one.
Under our federal Constitution as originally intended and interpreted? Yes. At our founding the states were a hundred years or more older than the new federal government. They had a lot of experience in the business and needed no advice from the feds.