Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
there is a separation between the "states" and "the people" as two different entities.
I don't mean literally that they were the people. Of course they're two different entities.
This sentence is a little more clear:
They (the state governments) wouldn't have removed the rights of the people. (As "people" was defined at the time, that's another discussion.) They WERE the people. The people wrote their OWN constitutions, and they included protections for their God-given rights.
I say "they were the people", I mean the states were closely controlled by the people. They wouldn't have turned on the people the way that they have today. It would be like running your own company in a way that would bankrupt you personally. It just wouldn't happen. Today, the states AREN'T the people. They are giant special interest groups and have little, or no, concern for the rights of "the people".
Think of it.... almost every state constitution has it's OWN "Right to Keep and Bear Arms". Why would the 2nd of the COTUS need to be applied to the states? It shouldn't need to be at all, but we've lost control. The states no longer represent us. They represent power and influence. That's the ONLY reason why we even have this discussion. If the states were operating like the states are supposed to operate, the applicability or not of the COTUS there to would be irrelevant.