When I questioned whether gun ownership was an absolute right, it was not a strawman, it was my belief this was your position.
No, no rights are absolute. Judicial review and the attendant level of scrutiny are applied to determine what is proper and what is not. While the recent McDonald decision didn't explicitly state a standard of review, Heller took 'rational basis' off the table, and McDonald's 'fundamental' language points us toward strict scrutiny.
Let me break down your next section into individual pieces:
If the right isn't absolute, then it may be sensibly abridged. Your right to own a gun shoudn't be allowed to infringe on other people's right to life, liberty and happiness. For example, a state or city should have the power to make laws demanding background checks and waiting periods for the purchase of firearms.
One small quibble, there is no right to happiness, merely the pursuit of. I won't be pedantic and note that that statement is from the Declaration of Independence, and as such doesn't have force of law. It's a well established social expectation, and as such it could best be described as an 'unenumerated' right.
Background checks? Valid constitutionally. The dicta in Heller explicitly endorsed them as presumptively constitutional.
Waiting periods? Never tested. My guess is that such restrictions will be unconstitutional. Could you see the same restriction applying to voting? To political speech? The comparison is valid (legally) because these other rights have been ruled 'fundamental' as well.
They should be able to assert that firearms can only by legally purchased at a licenced dealer which follows those laws and is accountable when they aren't followed (not a traveling gun show).
States can do this, but the federal government does not have the power to regulate the sale of property between two in-state residents. That would be intra-state commerce, rather than interstate commerce. I can't tell if you don't know that a dealer with an FFL must do a background check wherever and whenever he sells a firearm. (There are always some folks who incorrectly think that federal firearms laws don't apply at gun shows, I don't know if you fall into that category.)
They could also assert that since modern handguns can do so much damage, the owner must be licenced.
Abridgments of rights have never been balanced against the relative damage of exercising them. This was most recently discussed in McDonald:
The right to keep and bear arms, however, is not the only constitutional right that has controversial public safety implications. All of the constitutional provisions that impose restrictions on law enforcement and on the prosecution of crimes fall into the same category. See, e.g., Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586, 591 (2006) (“The exclusionary rule generates ‘substantial social costs,’ United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 907 (1984), which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large”); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 522 (1972) (reflecting on the serious consequences of dismissal for a speedy trial violation, which means “a defendant who may be guilty of a serious crime will go free”); Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 517 (1966) (Harlan, J., dissenting); id., at 542 (White, J., dissenting) (objecting that the Court’s rule “in some unknown number of cases . . . will return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets . . . to repeat his crime”); Mapp, 367 U. S., at 659.
Lastly where it concerns weapons of war, such as an ak-47, they should be able to assert that these weapons be restricted to those persons who are members of a local militia (as the 2nd amendment does).
Two things-
What do you mean when you say 'ak-47'? Do you mean the actual rifle capable of full-auto fire? If so, then they're already heavily restricted via the 1934 National Firearms Act, and the 1986 McClure-Volkmer act that closed the registry to new civilian entry.
If by 'ak-47', you mean any semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable magazine, then you're out of luck. No army uses semi-automatic weapons, so they are not 'weapons of war', and Heller already precluded such bans. They presume that other such bans on weapons 'in common use, for lawful purposes' would also be swept away. AR-15's and rifles derived from the same technology are used in hunting, for competition, and self-defense in the home. They're also one of the best-selling rifles on the market.
I like how you stuck your unsupported assertion there on the end, that the second amendment only protects use my a militia. I almost didn't catch it the first time around. Nice try, but no.
