The individual RKBA (outside the militia context) is also, IMO, an un-enumerated natural right. If you subscribe to the idea that human beings have natural rights, are you comfortable with the notion that the Constitution protects only those rights that are specifically enumerated in the Constitution?
Comfortable? No.
But whether or not I'm "comfortable" with what the Constitution said doesn't change what it actually did say.
The truth is that "notion" isn't as simple as you're portraying it. The starting point of the analysis is that the Constitution limited only the federal government, and that the Bill of Rights only limited the actions of the
federal government. I assume we at least agree with that, right? And that the
states had the acknowledged right to pass laws regulating religions, speech, etc.. That is basic hornbook law, openly acknowledged by the Supreme Court right up through the Civil War. Right?
It also is generally understood that the Bill of Rights was, to many, considered somewhat redundant. The Constitution was viewed as creating a government of limited, enumerated powers only, and therefore the federal government didn't have the right to do the things listed in the Bill of Rights
anyway. But some delegates wanted it to be even more explicitly limited, so they added the Bill of Rights. The point of the Ninth and Tenth was to ensure that the Bill of Rights wasn't used as a wedge to essentially argue backwards that it gave the Federal Government
more power. In other words,
"natural rights" were protected not by the Bill of Rights, but by the foundational limitations of a government that was limited only to strictly enumerated powers.So the point is this --
from very beginning of this country, states were permitted, and did, take actions that violated even Constitutionally-enumerated rights. Therefore, the idea that there were some "hidden", unenumerated rights in the Constitution is preposterous. The Framers openly didn't protect any such rights, right from the start of the country. Those rights simply did not exist in the Constitution. There is no rational argument that they did given that states were freely permitted to "violate" them.
Because if you are, the stakes in upholding Heller have just gotten greater. Overrule Heller, and the 2A provides for NO enumerated protection of the basic right of self-defense unconnected with the militia. And since in your view the natural right cannot be protected, it can be taken away, by either the federal government or by the states.
The natural right isn't extinguished, though the legal right may be. That is simply the reality of our Constitutional/legal structure, not a moral judgment about what is preferable to me personally.
I disagree with you, and accept the idea that the Constitution protects un-enumerated natural rights of man. Yes, that view leads to the protection of the abortion right, but it also permits the right to self-defense to be protected notwithstanding the 2A's limitation by the predicate clause. It also permits that protection to be extended vis a vis the states by means of the incorporation doctrine. If you don't take that view, then the entire right dies as soon as the Dems assemble a Court majority to overrule Heller.
You didn't address the incongruity of the Founders believing in giving the Courts zero guidance, boundaries, or standards, to enforce upon the states their vision of what other "rights" should be protected.