Blog Post  Massachusetts Declaration of Rights – Article 20

Article 20 (1780)

The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

Precedents

English Bill of Rights (1689):

“[T]he pretended power of suspending the laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;

[T]he pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal.”
 

Section 7, Virginia Declaration of Rights, Adopted unanimously June 12, 1776, Virginia Convention of Delegates, drafted by Mr. George Mason:

“That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority without consent of the representatives of the people is injurious to their rights and ought not to be exercised.”
 

Article 7, Maryland Declaration of Rights, Adopted November 11, 1776, Delegates of Maryland in Free and Full Convention Assembled:

“That no power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, unless by or derived from the Legislature, ought to be exercised or allowed.”