Jim, forgive a stupid question but couldn't congress legislate full incorporation of the Bill of Rights under Section 5 of the 14th amendment?
Sounds like appropriate legislation to me.
Under the precedents in Slaughter-house, Cruikshank and the other anti-incorporation cases, no, Congress can't do squat UNLESS it affects interstate travel.
The whole point of Slaughter-house and it's descendant cases is that the Federal authorities cannot control state-level violations of civil rights in general. And where the 2nd Amendment is concerned, this is still taken seriously by some Federal circuit court judges, including the 9th in the Fresno Rifle (1992), Hickman (1996) and Nordyke (2003) cases. Silveira (2002) disagreed with this trend and had to come up with a whole new plan for gun-grabbing...which is now totally shot down in flames in Heller.
The BIG question now is, will Slaughter-house, Cruikshank and the like get overturned? I think yes: Cruikshank is the real lynch-pin and it's a racist mess and a half as the Heller court noted.
That said, some issues are under Federal jurisdiction now. Under the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) if you're traveling from, say, New Hampshire to Pennsylvania by way of New Jersey, New Jersey can't screw with you. Congress has the right to control interstate travel. That's also why I think a lot of the CCW reciprocity issues fall under the cross-state-border rules as defined in cases like Saenz.
In other words, I think it's clear that a state cannot violate the civil rights of visitors from other states, in ways that discriminate against them or punish them based on what state they come from. That will get stomped on the instant somebody challenges it correctly.
The open question is, can states (such as California, Hawaii, New Jersey, etc.) abuse the 2nd Amendment rights of their own citizens? That will require a challenge to Cruikshank and Slaughter-house. I think such a challenge will win and the Heller court strongly suggests the same thing.