Click here to view the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The section referring to people’s rights to bear arms is here:<\/p>\n

Article XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the current Article I also contains relevant text:<\/p>\n

Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties<\/strong>; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. [Annulled by Amendments, Art. CVI<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Article CVI. Article I of Part the First of the Constitution is hereby annulled and the following is adopted:-All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties<\/strong>; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to view the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The section referring to people’s rights to bear arms is here: Article XVII. 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/westfordpro2a.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}