The lack of originalist justification for excluding felons from the Second Amendment

I just saw on SSRN this notable article by Carlton Larson about the Supreme Court's work in Heller, titled "Four Exceptions in Search of a Theory: District of Columbia v. Heller and Judicial Ipse Dixit."  Here is the abstract:

This Symposium Essay examines the Supreme Court's Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.  Specifically, the Essay examines four exceptions to the right to bear arms that the Court specifically approved: laws disarming felons; laws disarming the mentally ill; laws prohibiting the possession of firearms in sensitive places; and laws regulating the commercial sale of firearms.  The Essay argues that these exceptions cannot be completely justified on originalist grounds, at least under the form of originalism that the Court is likely to employ.  The Essay further argues that the exceptions cannot be justified if strict scrutiny is the applicable standard of scrutiny.  Accordingly, some lesser standard of review of firearms regulation must apply.

This little essay confirms my own suppositions about the absence of sound and compelling originalist justification for categorically precluding all felons (not to mention some misdemeanants) from the protections of the Second Amendment.  Consider these passages from the piece:

[S]o far as I can determine, no colonial or state law in eighteenth-century America formally restricted the ability of felons to own firearms....

The absence of an explicit felon exception in the text of the Second Amendment is echoed in state constitutional provisions. Only one state constitutional provision addressing the right to bear arms contains an exception for felons.  This provision, Idaho’s, was enacted in 1978....

In sum, felon disarmament laws significantly post-date both the Second Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.  An originalist argument that sought to identify 1791 or 1868 analogues to felon disarmament laws would be quite difficult to make.

Some related Second Amendment posts:

• Justice Scalia sells out felon gun rights, but on what basis exactly?
• Former SG Ted Olson suggests Heller could impact broad prohibitions on felon gun rights
• SCOTUS undercuts constitutional gun rights in Hayes without even mentioning Heller or Second Amendment
• Even the Chief and Justice Scalia are content to damn gun possession with faint praise
• Deafening silence from the gun rights crowd about Hayes
• Given Hayes, can jurisdictions criminalize gun possession by any misdemeanant?
• What if no lower court judges participate in a "Second Amendment Revolution"
• Has there been a single pro-gun-rights rulings in lower courts since Heller?
• Still more proof that federal courts have no real interest in gun rights
• District Court rejects Second Amendment claim from misdemeanant
• Another (too?) brief opinion rejecting misdemeanant's Second Amendment claim
• Starting to make the Second Amendment case for Plaxico Buress
• "The New Second Amendment: A Bark Worse Than Its Right"
• Is anyone (other than me) discussing the apparent insignificance of Heller?
• What might 2009 have in store for . . . Second Amendment jurisprudence?