Unless it is to defend gun ownership? (clueless UK citizen here)

Tons (if not all) of gun laws exist in the US that are unconstitutional. You many not know this as a UK citizen but the gun industry in the US is very regulated, e.g. creating a gun from scratch by yourself and selling it to someone else is illegal.

.... it would seem to be a fairly extreme interpretation of the 2nd amendment to support the creation of uncontrolled, unsafe, unlicensed, untracked firearms.

The 2nd amendment just says you have to be able to own and carry weapons, with a rough implication that they should be fit for military purpose. The idea that registration or quality or safety requirements are somehow unconstitutional is and has always been absurd.

They become less absurd in light of other abuses against civil rights.

~The 14th Amendment just says that blacks have equal rights to vote as whites. The idea that poll taxes or literacy tests or official intimidation while in transit to the polling places are somehow unconstitutional is and always has been... absolutely correct.~

In some counties, bearing a concealed firearm requires a permit issued by the sheriff. In some counties, the sheriffs do not issue any permits. In others, the sheriffs issue fewer permits to black people than the local demographic statistics would otherwise suggest.

Do you understand now why such subtle and apparently reasonable encroachments upon a right must be scrutinized so very closely?

> The 14th Amendment just says that blacks have equal rights to vote as whites.

No, it doesn't say that at all. You are probably thinking of the 15th Amendment, section 1 of which is "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

> The idea that poll taxes or literacy tests or official intimidation while in transit to the polling places are somehow unconstitutional is and always has been... absolutely correct

Except, not; hence the prohibition of poll taxes by the 24th Amendment, and the prohibition of literacy tests for voting in some districts by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, later amended to apply to the whole country in 1970.

(Those things have, no doubt, always been wrong; they were not, however, unconstitutional, or even prohibited federally in any form, until much later than the 15th Amendment.)

My errors of fact aside, reasonable restrictions may be applied unreasonably by a biased enforcer.

While it may seem reasonable to require a proficiency test to legally own a gun, what you will see in practice is that any possible ambiguity in the legal definition for such a test will be exploited to serve the political preference of the tester.

> it would seem to be a fairly extreme interpretation of the 2nd amendment to support the creation of uncontrolled, unsafe, unlicensed, untracked firearms

You're right, the laws are unconstitutional because of the tenth amendment.

Before the normal arguments about the constitution pop up, please know that I'm not a rightist and I don't support it, I just don't like it when people twist words and laws to suit their political agenda.

The only real reason blatantly anti-constitutional law such as blanket seizure/confiscation hasn't happened on a large scale yet (because they've sure as hell tried) is that, if such laws were passed, the powers that be would suddenly find themselves in front of an enormous number of very angry gun owners who (hopefully) would be less than willing to cooperate peacefully.

Most gun legislation dies pretty quickly in congress. I don't think the threat of violence from gun owners has particularly affected that process.

To me it seems unclear that the threat of this sort violence from gun owners has actually been a significant consideration or relevance for many decades, despite the mythology surrounding it. As opposed to the demonstrably effective threat of organized political action by gun right advocates, say.

Yeah, I'm still waiting for the first time gun owners raise their weapons in the interest of freedom. From all I can tell, the vocal pro-gun people are ale vocally pro status-quo.

I doubt the sheep are that ferocious.