I hope this isn't a threadjack, it is a question involving the US Constitution and the 2A.
If I'm to understand the US Constitution being the "supreme law of the land", then why do some individual states have redudancies in their own constitutions?
Amendment X states "The powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
I take this to mean, if it's in the Constitution, then it will be followed, unless it is prohibited by the Constitution. And anything else not listed is up to the states to decide.
So the 2A is already there, and it would be unconstitutional to violate it, why do some states, PA for example, have it's own law regarding the right to keep and bear arms?
I recall learning that for an amount of time, the US Constitution was only relating to the federal govt., but then the XIV Amendment applied it to the individual states, but I can't find it now.
As for the "State" in the 2A, I've always taken it to mean the United States, as in State as a country, because it is in the US Constitution, not in a individual state's one.
I mean I know this is part of what the Heller case is supposed to finally decide, but my understanding of this is that places like NYC and CA are already violating the Constitution, and all other states constitutions even if they allow freedom of arms, are redundant in that aspect.