The Mason Triad Context of Second Amendment Development and Purpose

Barriers Against Power in All Forms and Departments of Government 
Updated February 22, 2013
   Every existing state bill of rights in 1789 (eight instances) [The Origin of the Second Amendment, pp.747-780], and every proposal of bill of rights related amendments for the Constitution voted on by state ratifying conventions (seven instances) [OSA, pp.151, 260, 446, 459, 481, 505, 735], included a Second Amendment related provision, which was always accompanied with a limit on, or warning that a peacetime standing army was dangerous to liberty. In all cases where a complete bill of rights was involved (thirteen instances), there was a third linked concept closely related to the first two - that military forces were controlled by the "civil power".
   These universally present American bill of rights features were first identified in TheFounders' View of the Right to Bear Arms and dubbed Mason Triads, because their earliest iteration appeared in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights written by George Mason. [FVRBA, p.4] Complete Mason Triads always had leading Second Amendment related protection, either well regulated militia of the people, or, the people have a right to bear arms style language. This was universally followed by language discouraging or limiting a standing army, with the final part subordinating government raised force to the civil power. The Mason Triads from the last four state ratifying conventions duplicated the Second Amendment related protection by including both the people have a right to keep and bear arms and the well regulated militia of the people style language as the leading triad part. [A complete listing of Second Amendment predecessor Mason Triads can be found online in Appendices I and II of The American Revolutionary Era Origin of the Second Amendment's Clauses.]
   While proponents of gun control have interpreted the Second Amendment, its predecessors, and related language appearing in Mason Triads as all about military matters entirely under government control, the exact opposite is actually the case. The purpose of Mason Triads was clearly "barriers against power in all forms and departments of Government" as James Madison described American bills of rights in 1789. [The Origin of the Second Amendment, p.657] He was introducing the predecessor of the U.S. Bill of Rights into Congress and his proposals, based directly on those barriers, were the foundation of the first eight amendments, including both clauses of the Second Amendment. [OSA. pp.654-661]
   Madison and Congress retained the leading Second Amendment related protections from state convention proposed Mason Triads but dropped the final two parts because their restrictions were substantially included in the original Constitution. Funding of armies was limited to two years and required legislative approval, the latter being the limitation specified in four of the original state Mason Triads. Additionally, all military force raised was under the direction of a civilian commander in chief, who was backed up by the power of the entire civil population that had authorized the Constitution, thus making it the supreme law of the land not only on paper, but also in fact. Since numerous period documents presenting Federalist and Antifederalist arms mantras emphasized the people were armed and could prevent tyranny, the only essential Mason Triad part needed as an addition to the Constitution was assurance for existence of an armed populace, which the Second Amendment amply provided. See the previous post, The Second Amendment and Founding Era Arms Mantras, below, for further information.
   Placing the Second Amendment into its appropriate Mason Triad period context as a barrier against government power greatly clarifies its meaning. It was never intended to protect state militia authority because its predecessors were understood as barriers to the power of the states. Instead, its purpose was to assure the people's control over the new Federal Government they authorized and any forces it might raise. This information fully explains the Second Amendment's references to a free state and the necessity of an effective militia of the people, who would be able to self-embody for organized defense with their own arms, because their right to possess and use arms was protected against any meddling by the government.
   The citizens in 1789 relied on flintlock firearms just as the soldiers of a period army. At that time, a standing army in time of peace was the face of tyranny. Today, the face of tyranny is just as common in the world, but is much more intrusive and dangerous, and is usually referred to as a police state. Americans have the constitutional right and duty to prevent the establishment of any police state in the United States. The people must keep their government under their control, which is accomplished, not by fighting, which is only a last resort, but by making certain that violations of the Constitution by those at the helm of government are challenged and reversed.
   In the modern world, government raised forces, whether troops or police, are not armed with flintlock firearms. Police forces always carry modern arms. The purpose of such arms is self-defense. Every American citizen is guaranteed the same right by the Second Amendment. In order for Americans to keep their government and its forces under their control, as the Constitution gaurantees, the people, at a minimum, have the right to keep and bear the same type of arms that police are provided. These arms would include modern pistols, shotguns, and rifles, especially, although not limited to, those chambered for the rounds designated for use by American troops.

Second Amendment History Online - George Mason's Antifederalist Arms Mantra

The Militia May Be Here Destroyed...By Rendering Them Useless - By Disarming Them
[George Mason employed the Antifederalist arms mantra in a speech to delegates of the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 14, 1788 in support of an amendment of Article 1, Section 8 militia powers. At the end of this speech he stated the specific amendment sought and the fact that it was the only one needed for this part of the Constitution. Mason clearly equated the militia and the people, and it is evident that he thought an armed populace was the proper defense of liberty against government raised military force. Excerpts from this speech have often been used by modern control advocates to link militia powers amendment discussion with Second Amendment development and intent, even though the subject under discussion was not adding Bill of Rights protection, which preexisted the writing of the Constitution, but alteration of a specific power that did not exist until the Constitution was written. The amendment Mason specified was not the Second Amendment's predecessor. Further information on this point can be found in Error as Foundation for the Mother of All Ideological Divides.] 
"There are various ways of destroying the militia. A standing army may be perpetually established in their stead. I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army. The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless - by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them, &c. . . Should the national government wish to render the militia useless, they may neglect them, and let them perish, in order to have a pretence of establishing a standing army. . . .

But when once a standing army is established in any country, the people lose their liberty. When, against a regular and disciplined army, yeomanry are the only defence, - yeomanry, unskilful and unarmed, - what chance is there for preserving freedom? Give me leave to recur to the page of history, to warn you of your present danger. . . Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man [Sir William Keith], who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia. . . Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed? . . .I wish that, in case the general government should neglect to arm and discipline the militia, there should be an express declaration that the state governments might arm and discipline them. With this single exception, I would agree to this part, as I am conscious the government ought to have the power." [The Origin of the SecondAmendment, pp.401-402]

Second Amendment History Online - A Landholder's Antifederalist Arms Mantra

They May Arm or Disarm All or Any Part of the Freemen of the United States

[A Landholder requested republication of a Boston newspaper essay in the Philadelphia Freeman's Journal of January 16, 1788. The reprinted version was altered from the original by more strongly emphasizing the Antifederalist arms mantra presented. This text shows how period authors understood the militia to be the freemen, and that those opposed to the new Constitution feared the new government would disarm the people, thus enabling enforcement of tyranny by a standing army. The concept of an armed populace capable of preventing tyranny was presented as a well regulated militia - common, and well understood, period terminology.]

"It is asserted by the most respectable writers upon government, that a well regulated militia, composed of the yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered as the bulwark of a free people. Tyrants have never placed any confidence on a militia composed of freemen. Experience has taught them that a standing body of regular forces, whenever they can be completely introduced, are always efficacious in enforcing their edicts, however arbitrary; . . . No, my fellow citizens, this plainly shows they do not mean to depend upon the citizens of the States alone to enforce their powers; they mean to lean upon something more substantial and summary. They have left the appointment of [militia] officers in the breasts of the several States; but this appears to me an insult rather than a privilege, for what avails this right, if they at their pleasure may arm or disarm all or any part of the freemen of the United States, so that when their army is sufficiently numerous, they may put it out of the power of the freemen militia of America to assert and defend their liberties, however they might be encroached upon by Congress. Does any, after reading this provision for a regular standing army, suppose that they intended to apply to the militia in all cases, and to pay particular attention to making them the bulwark of this continent." [The Origin of the Second Amendment, pp. 211-212]

Second Amendment History Online - Noah Webster's Federalist Arms Mantra

 Before a Standing Army can Rule, the People must be Disarmed
Updated January 25, 2013
[Noah Webster, of later dictionary fame, was a strong Federalist who wrote an early pamphlet, An Examination Into The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (October 10, 1787), under the pseudonym A Citizen of America. This was published only three weeks after the Constitution was made public. Webster's purpose was to defend the proposed Constitution and argue for its ratification without amendment. His view on an armed populace is not based on any stated protection for such a concept in the Constitution. There was no constitutional assurance for the armed population that Webster so clearly described as the source of power and the check on possible government tyranny. This specific problem, the Constitution's failure to assure the people's control over the government they were being asked to ratify, was emphasized in period Antifederalist arms mantras, which will be presented in future posts of this series.]

   "But what is tyranny? Or how can a free people be deprived of their liberties? Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state. . . .

   Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any other force that exists among the people, or which they can command: for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in American cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." [The Origin of the Second Amendment, p.40]

[The Origin of the Second Amendment is the documentary source for the Second Amendment History Online series. This document collection was cited over 100 times in the U.S. v Emerson decision, cited in the Parker v District of Columbia decision, as well as several times in Justice Scalia's Heller decision. The reason for the extensive citations relative to Second Amendment intent in those decisions was because Origin reprints nearly 800 pages of documents (newspaper articles, letters, broadsides, notes, convention debates, speeches, etc.) from the Ratification Era relating to the need for the Federal Bill of Rights, the necessity of an armed populace, and militia related discussion, all emphasizing the limited nature of the Federal Government's intended powers.]

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