Reply #185: I believe I have explained at length what those cases mean, and precisely how it is that you are...

[varkam]

misinterpreting them. I don't think that me going over it again, especially not when I did it in the post previous, is going to make much a difference with respect to our interactions - but I'll try. Suffice it to say, protection of citizens is generally left up to the states except in instances of war where the federal government needs to mobilize. So if you're looking for cases that are going to support your hypothesis that there is no obligation on the government to protect citizens, then you'd have better luck looking at cases that are construing state constitutions. Additionally, you'll also have better luck if, instead of looking at the Due Process Clause (or some analog in state constitutions), you look at something else - seeing as how the DPC imposes restrictions on the government, not obligations.

that firearm ownership is somehow inexorably tied to the right to personal self-defense" which is precisely what PA (1776) and VT (1777) said in their constitutions.

So you are seriously asserting that owning a firearm grants the right to self-defense? Does that mean that if one does not own a firearm, that they do not have the right to self-defense?

By referring to the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments, it’s clear that SCOTUS used "pre-existing right" in the same sense that PA and VT used “natural, inherent, inalienable/unalienable rights”.

I agree - I'm not arguing that - nor am I arguing the fact that there is a right to bear arms nor am I arguing that self-defense is not related to that right. You seem to be arguing against a bunch of relatively weak straw-men. Notice that in none of the material that you posted is it even implied that owning a firearm is necessary for self-defense, or that if you take away the right to bear arms then the right to defend ones self somehow goes away (much less if you take away the right to bear semi-automatic weapons).

As an inalienable right it is impossible for PA citizens to give the right of self-defense away when they ratified our Constitution or when they ratified the BOR. PA citizens acknowledged that fact by retaining the right of self-defense in their constitution when they modified it just five months after they ratified the BOR.

See - there it is again: the conflation of a self-defense right with a right to bear arms. They are not, and I repeat - not - one in the same. There may be a relationship between them, but a self-defense right and a right to bear arms are not synonymous with one another, as you seem to be using them. Nor even is the right to bear arms synonymous with the right to bear semi-automatic weaponry.

Firearms including handguns are one of the tools included as "arms" protected by the Second Amemdment

Where have I said that handguns aren't protected arms under the 2A?

In the Heller quote, in the portion that you bolded, the key phrase in that sentence is prima facie which to me means that there is a presumption that arms are protected but that it can be overcome (as the court says in the passage prior to the portion that you bolded - firearms intended for military use are not arms to be protected under the 2nd Amendment).