Should the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States be interpreted to mean that freedom of the press is "only a collective right? Should Congress, accordingly, deny a license to publish to the Washington Post for its efforts to restrict the rights of ordinary Americans? It's a bad idea, of course, but the Washington Post wants the standard to apply to the Second Amendment. It's time to award three more black stars to its editorial board for Contempt of Constitution.

This is a critical year for the American Bill of Rights. The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering a federal appellate court ruling that the ban on handguns by the District of Columbia is unconstitutional. The DC government and the Post are among those of a "Progressive viewpoint throwing a fit about the prospect of allowing law-abiding citizens to keep handguns in their homes for self-defense. With that ban in place, DC has long been one of the most violent cities in the country. Economist John Lott has repeatedly proven that states with less restrictive gun ownership laws have lower rates of violent crime. His logic is impeccable. Criminals don,t obey gun control laws, so such laws make them bolder by disarming the innocent.

Nevertheless, the Post's March 17 editorial on the case arrogantly proclaims, "Not reflected in that argument is what the rate for violent crimes would have been had guns been even more plentiful on the streets of the nation's capital. This is either sheer ignorance of Lott's studies or willful contempt of truth. The latter is more likely. Over a decade ago, a woman living in DC shot a criminal who broke into her house with a handgun she kept hidden in her bedroom. DC authorities, to avoid more publicity on this case, did not prosecute her for violating the handgun ban.

The text of the Second Amendment is, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Gun control advocates like the Post want to use that reference to state militias to cancel the people's right to keep and bear arms. The Post editorial says, "The most direct path for victory for the District would come if the justices conclude that the Constitution protects only a collective right to bear arms.

This is nonsense. If the Second Amendment does not contain any individual right to bear arms, it merely restates the fact that governments are able to arm the military. As the United States had already exercised that power to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War, such an amendment was not needed. That power was never in dispute.

What Americans did dispute in those days was the need for a permanent or standing army. They expected the states to be the cornerstone of national security, using their militias, which consisted of all free males capable of bearing arms.

Remember, the Declaration of Independence did not create the United States. It declared the 13 American colonies to be "Free and Independent States. The Articles of Confederation, which formed and named the "United States of America, specified that all powers not expressly delegated to the Continental Congress remained with the states.

During the process of ratifying the Constitution, the ratification documents either attached reservations, or requested a Bill of Rights, or both, from (in chronological order) Massachusetts, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. The last five of these states included a call to protect the right to bear arms. Virginia's call for this right restated its own Bill of Rights of 1776, when it said:

"That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence [sic] of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power.

Note that Virginia placed the right to keep and bear arms ahead of the need for a well-regulated militia as the "natural and safe defense of a free State. The same language was used by New York and Rhode Island.

Therefore, the Second Amendment refers to the need of the free states of the Union to maintain militias composed of free men with the right to keep and bear arms. This fact negates the claim that the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is merely a "collective right of the state to arm militias and armies. The militias, in the view of the founders of our republic, are the alternative to standing armies, which are a menace to liberty in times of peace. The militia of a "free State, unlike an unfree state, relies on a free people's right to bear arms.

That right, however, is also based upon the Ninth Amendment. It says the government cannot deny nor disparage other rights of the people merely because they are not listed in the Constitution. Those unenumerated rights include the personal right of self-defense.

This right is biblically based. The Gospel of Luke reports this instruction of Jesus to the Apostles:

"But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

[The Apostles said] "Lord, look, here are two swords.

And he said to them, "It is enough. [Luke 22:36-38]

Three gold stars go to Robert Levy, the attorney who organized the lawsuit the Supreme Court is now hearing on Second Amendment rights. Levy's motive is also golden "I believe in the written Constitution and that the text ought to be interpreted the way it was meant to be.

Give a constitutional gold star, among others supporting the plaintiffs in this case, to 126 women legislators and scholars, who submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that includes this plain truth:

"The District's current prohibition against handguns and immediately serviceable firearms in the home effectively eliminates a woman's ability to defend her very life and those of her children against violent attacks. Women are simply less likely to be able to thwart violence using means currently permitted under DC law.

Give the Washington Post credit for reporting their argument.

The Post editorial also concedes, "The argument for an individual right [to bear arms] has been gaining legitimacy even outside conservative circles; some liberal legal stalwarts have come to grudgingly accept the notion that the framers of the Constitution meant to protect an individual's right to own a gun. But it concludes, "If the [Supreme Court] justices recognize an individual right, they can and should allow lawmakers maximum flexibility to enact reasonable regulation. In our view, that flexibility should include the District's law, which is aimed at taking the most dangerous guns off the streets of what was once one of the nation's most dangerous cities.

The Post dissembles. The DC law denies its citizens even the right to keep a handgun at home. Indeed, the lower federal court ruling would still allow strict gun controls on DC streets, but would acknowledge the right of the people to keep and bear arms to defend their homes. But why shouldn,t law-abiding citizens be allowed to bear arms on the streets of a city as dangerous as Washington, DC?

The Scorecard suggests readers send a copy of the Ninth Amendment and, perhaps, a copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, to the Post. They might even ask if the Post would like the First Amendment rights to be considered as only "collective rights so that publications like the Post would have no personal right to make and sell newspapers and magazines.