How does a requirement to register a firearm restrict ones second amendment rights?

Registration in and of itself doesn't restrict one's rights, but registration is commonly used to restrict the right to keep and bear arms. Chicago is a good example; In Chicago you are required to register a handgun to legally own it, but they won't register handguns, therefor handguns are banned through the refusal to register them. New Orleans is another example, when the police used registration lists to go around and illegally seize firearms after Katrina.

The way to look at this is to figure out what the second amendment really means. You as an american citizen, or part of the people, have the right to be able to buy a gun and to keep it. If registration were to lead you to lose your ability to have a gun before due process, then it might infringe upon your right.

If it is carry and conceal, this is something quite different. That is not protected by the second amendment, and you can keep a gun, and bear a gun (ie, be in the militia) without a carry and conceal permit.

Also any permits that allow for hunting are also perfectly valid.

well, obviously by having to register we take the right of gun ownership away from certain people like convicted criminals and the mentally ill. Additionally, we eliminate anonymity - the government now knows who has the guns.

however, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. all rights are subject to restrictions. we have the right to freedom of speech, but we can't use it to incite acts of violence and we can't scream "fire" in a movie theater.

the bottom line is that the leaders who wrote the constitution did not know everything that would occur throughout time to our country. and so, it is up to us to continually adapt and interpret the law to suit new situations. if we didn't then in theory each of us should be able to own a nuclear weapon.

It doesn't. The Second Amendment says the government cannot restrict you from owning one, but it can regulate it.

It doesn't. The Supreme Court said in DC v. Heller that registration requirements are constitutional.

By how easy you make it for a government to confiscate it in times of 'emergency'.