> All this to say, incorporation doctrine is pretty convoluted. If you think that the 2nd amendment should not be incorporated but the rest should then that would make things even more absurd.

Please indulge me in a hypothetical. Suppose the 2nd amendment had almost exactly the same practical effect when ratified, but was phrased as: "The Federal government may not restrict any State maintaining its militia, nor seek to restrict or impair that state's supply of future potential volunteers and their armaments."

Would you consider that to be a rule about the fed<->people relationship (creating a personal right for all "potential volunteers"), or do you read it as a rule about the balance of power between fed<->state layers?

Does the difference between those categories matter when it comes to applying the 14th, and which fed-can't-do-X rules autogenerate new state-can't-do-X rules?

> [...] without it becoming nine judges determine what rights the government grants you, thus defeating the entire purpose of the bill of rights.

Maybe, but that's an appeal to consequences, the truth of something shouldn't depend on whether we like what it says about the universe... and does it matter when we're already having that exact problem anyway?