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Poster: elwoodblues
Should the federal government be able to tell a state (or in this case DC) that it can't ban guns?
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The Constitution promises to the states to forever provide a Republican form of government. The classical republic the framers embraced has as an inseparable component, an armed citizenry. Those armed citizens comprise the means of security for both the state and the federal government, thus the national government can not allow a state to disarm those citizens the nation relies on. See
US v Presser:
<ul type="square">" It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to the general government."[/list]
Notice this protection of the citizen's arms exists without any reference to the 2nd Amendment and is immune to any argument centered on incorporation.