Given the facts of incorporation of the Amendments, you are correct. The intent at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights was that they would apply to the central government, and that each of the states would act as they saw fit, responding to the wishes of their constituents.
However, given the specific language of the 1A, the 9A, and the 10A:
1A) Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis mine)
9A) The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
10A) The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
it can be argued (correctly, in my view) that:
- the 1A was specifically applicable to the federal government, the Congress in particular;
- the rights of the People are not fully delineated; and
- the power to infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms was expressly not delegated to the federal government, was implicitly prohibited to the states, and thus, was retained by the people.
2A) A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
The Constitution is a limitation upon the power of government, not upon the people.
Not that I expect any organ of government to adopt this view. I wonder what Scalia's opinion in the Heller case would have looked like if he'd had six solid Conservative Justices on the Court when he wrote it. I am convinced, as was Justice Stevens, in his autobiography, that much of what Scalia said was said for the purpose of gaining Justice Kennedy's agreement to make it a majority opinion, rather than a dissent.
Blessings,
Bill
