The Supreme Court is deciding whether a complete ban on all handguns in Washington, D.C. violates the second amendment of the Constitution, which says that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

You might think, if you have even passing familiarity with the word "infringe," that the answer is obvious. And indeed early reports indicate the Supremes will decide that you do, in fact, have an individual right to bear arms.

Why was there any doubt? For two reasons, or rather, one motivation and one excuse. The motivation was simply to make the government larger and with more power over your life. The excuse has been the first part of the second amendment, which begins with the clause, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." Does that mean that the right to guns extends only to members of a militia? Or only in circumstances when a militia is necessary to our security?

There is no real argument here. That clause does not modify the right nor place restrictions on it. It is like the preamble to a document, contract, or even the Constitution itself. By analogy, if we are no longer interested in forming a more perfect union, does the entire Constitution cease to matter?

This is the silly decoy argument that the Supreme Court appears ready to stamp out. They will almost surely say that the second amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, militia or no militia.

That might seem like a victory for freedom, but the court won't stop there. They have to decide whether the handgun ban in D.C. is constitutional or not and how to decide what restrictions on weapons are legit. Safety locks? Individually-identified bullets? Waiting periods? Assault-weapon bans?

No one knows how they will decide yet. But the readers of the Weekly deserve to know ahead of time, so I'll tell you: they'll use the reasonable weasel. They'll say any law has to be "reasonable."

It's a trap. Whenever a politician says, "Let's be reasonable," the ghosts of the founding fathers reach for their guns.

Who decides what is reasonable? If you allow the government to decide what is a reasonable violation of your rights, then you no longer have unalienable rights to be protected by your elected officials, you have privileges granted to you by your prison warden.

Should we allow warrantless wiretapping as a reasonable defense against terrorism? How about a national ID card and restrictions on employers as a reasonable step against illegal immigration? Putting a million innocent people on a do-not-fly list? Imprisoning one in every one hundred Americans? Torture?

In my 2006 debate against Republican congressman Christopher Shays and Democratic challenger Diane Farrell, the issue of gun rights came up, and I pointed out that the second amendment prohibits any congressman from infringing even slightly on the right to bear arms. The clip is available on YouTube . I challenged each of them, both of whom support sweeping legislation against gun rights, to point to any area of the Constitution that authorizes them to do so. Of course, neither did. Shays said in essence that he believes it is up to him to determine what are "reasonable" restrictions, like trigger locks, etc.

But it's not. The text of the Constitution is clear. "Shall not be infringed" does not mean "shall not be infringed unless the person doing the infringing thinks it's okay."

There is a well-established concept of reasonableness used in the law, and that is the reasonable person standard. This is how courts determine, for example, whether someone was negligent. They will ask if you exercised the standard of care that a reasonable person would. In this case, a reasonable person is someone like you, but who exercises due care in a calm and collected way.

It is often up to the jury to decide if an act was reasonable or not. Note the difference with politicians: the twelve jurors have no other stake in the outcome, no lobbyists pushing one way or another, and no need to appeal to large groups of people to earn their vote later. They vote their consciences, once, and go home. And the decision can differ from case to case.

But when the government gets involved, and uses the reasonable weasel, it is a trap. Did you think I was merely guessing what the founding fathers think about the situation? Search for "reason" in the main text of the Constitution; it appears seven times—as part of "Treason."