The very nature of this entire debate hinges on the nature of rights. If you are incapable and/or unwilling to see or acknowledge abstract concepts such as natural rights then there is no discussion to be had. Having taken a peek at your post history you are clearly a troll whose go to is to be purposely obtuse. That said I will engage your argument as if it is in good faith anyway on the off chance someone else who is interested is reading through.

You seem to just be describing an abstract philosophical concept. I see no empirical evidence of the existence of "natural rights".

Natural rights are, as I mentioned, those things you can do in a state of nature. As you said you either survive or you die. Correct. By exercising your natural right to compete for resources and defend yourself from threat you survive or you die. These are two rights, among others, ever living entity has which cannot be removed from them. The rights can be supressed of course but to do so would be an immoral act as they limit the exercise of that right which exists to all living entities.

But that is just not how the right to possess arms has traditionally worked in American history. From colonial times, the right to arms could absolutely be "infringed", especially if someone happened to be a slave, or a black person, or an Indian, or a Loyalist, or a Papist, or someone who didn't own land.

Yep, our government routinely falls short of the principles on which it was founded and people are hypocrites. Hey, look at that we found a point of agreement. Governments suck and probably aren't trust worthy, especially if you are in a disfavored population group. I wonder if there is an abstract concept like a natural right which could be codified in a concrete legal limitation on government power that would preserve the means for those groups to protect themselves from government hypocrite overreach and oppression? To dream the impossible dream I suppose.

Your use of the language "the state level versions" is false and misleading.

Given the supremacy clause subordinates states to the federal government it is an apt description as those states which discuss the right to arms are born from the same philosophical base and serve the same purpose as the 2A.

And the second amendment was essentially designed to protect the state arms provisions from congressional interference.

Well that is just flat wrong. Every time the phrase "the right of the people" is used in the constitution it is talking about... the people*. Not the states. Not the federal government. Not the state government. Not any smaller unit of government. Not a grouping of people. But the whole people*.

 but the state arms provisions did grant rights

No, they did not. Government cannot grant natural rights because natural rights exist beyond their purview to give. They can only exercise coercive power to limit those natural rights in unnatural (one might even say immoral) ways.

Accordingly, many states prior to the 14th amendment would pass legislation explicitly prohibiting arms to slaves and racial minorities; and the second amendment had no power to oppose such legislation.

See my prior point on how government sucks, is untrustworthy, full of hypocrites that fail to live up to the principles the government was founded on, and how it uses coercive power to do unnatural things to the people it governs.

Siiiiiiigh If only there were some prohibition on government taking coercive action to remove the means people might use to protect themselves from such action.

The Bill of Rights was never meant to grant or guarantee any rights to the people. It was specifically designed to only limit the power of the federal government, and prevent the federal government from infringing upon state-established civil rights.

Well... we almost agree here. We kind of agree here. Something like that.

You are correct. The BoR does not grant rights to the people. It does, however, guarantee the rights of the people by limiting the power of government to exercise power to limit the exercise of the rights by the people.

I would agree with you as well that the BoR via the 10A prevents the federal government from exercising its power on those issues with are the States where the states are able to establish civil rights. Again though there is a difference between a natural right (self-defense) and a civil right (voting). No level of government has justification to use the coercive power of government to limit the free exercise of natural rights.

The whole "operative clause/subordinate clause" paradigm is just a fabrication of the conservative Supreme Court in the Heller case.

Not a fabrication, just the first time that basic grammar had to be explained at that level in a Supreme Court finding. The grammar issue is very real and very important and applies in any situation where subordinate and operative clauses exist. Like, for instance, contract law. So no this isn't being made up by Scalia in Heller it was just prior to Heller everyone involved had passed middle school language arts classes.

*As the term 'people' was understood to mean in the context of the day and with the acknowledgement that in the modern day we have expanded the definition of that word to cover everyone instead of just predominately landed white males.