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Originally Posted by ATN082268
What exactly is a "collective" right? Is that just a way of saying you recognize individual rights while at the same time denying those rights?
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A collective right is a right that you enjoy as long as you are acting as part of and on behalf of the populace, rather than acting as an individual for your own benefit.
As an example, I'll use the state constitution analogs to the Second Amendment:
Pennsylvania:
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Article I, Section 21.
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.
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So Pennsylvania guarantees citizens the right to bear arms for individual, personal self-defense.
Massachusetts (1780 version):
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Part 1, Art. 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 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.
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That language in the Massachusetts state constitution apparently has not been revised since it was adopted in 1780. It is noteworthy because, unlike the state constitutions of Pennsylvania and several of the other 13 original colonies/states, it guarantees the right to keep and bear arms only for the common defense. (At least one of the others says "for the defense of the state.") This is a "collective" right -- you don't count as an individual, but you are allowed to protect society as a whole.