Is that simple enough?

Sigh. Will someone get Zeldorf a clue rake...

Here you go.

With respect to Cruikshank’s continuing validity on incorporation, a question not presented by this case, we note that Cruikshank also said that the First Amendment did not apply against the States and did not engage in the sort of Fourteenth Amendment inquiry required by our later cases. Our later decisions in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 265 (1886) and Miller v. Texas, 153 U. S. 535, 538 (1894), reaffirmed that the Second Amendment applies only to the Federal Government.

Scotusblog sees this as hinting at incorporating the Second Amendment, but the second sentence reads to me like Scalia needed at least one more vote so he offers assurance that the prior decisions, reaffirmed, will not be cast off lightly. OTOH, Stevens complains in dissent that he does not know whether this decision will increase the labor of federal judges to the "breaking point." He seems to be anticipating more judicial activity than just the district of columbia. Just skimming the tea leaves.

That's pretty much exactly why I think labels for jurisprudence are pretty meaningless. I am also not particularly fond of Stevens, though I think he writes some decent opinions. I think that this opinion was Scalia at his best, reminscient of his early opinions, and a Scalia we really haven't see in awhile (his dissent in Bourdemine was just embarrassing). Alas, Scalia and Stevens both frequently fall on the "result first, justify later" jurisprudential scale.

But I suppose the decision, if focuses more on the "right of the people" than the militia part, may lay the groundwork for a later court to incorporate gun ownership as a fundamental right under the 14th Amendment. It would certainly be nice to put Scalia's originalist faith to the test on that one.

First, States have no power over constitutional rights.

Uh, wrong. Absent a ruling of incorporation under the 14th Amendment, rights enumerated (or not) in the Bill of Rights are protected from infringement by the federal government. As P.D. Shaw said above, the Heller opinion did not incorporate the 2d Amendment against the states.

Justice Stevens suggested that Scalia et al. were not true conservatives in his dissent

Justice Stevens, who has proven time and again that he is utterly shameless about contorting plain language out of all semblance of rational shape to suit his personal preferences, demonstrates in his dissent precisely why interpreting a right that expressly refers to "the People" as actually meaning "the State" is so dangerous. He purports to support his argument that the Second Amendment confers a 'collective' right by arguing that the First Amendment rights to assembly and petition for redress of grievances are 'collective' in nature rather than strictly individual rights.

Thus does a slipperly slope that ends with us having no rights at all begin. If standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" to such as that isn't "conservative," well, so be it.