Depends upon how you view the police. The police could be viewed as part of the militia called up to enforce the law in the employ of the state. The militia, being under civil authority, only need be called to duty by whomever is the civil authority. Be they hired on and called "the police", those people are still citizens who were eligible for call-up to militia duty.
One must note, too, that the "collective" right theory fails for the simple reason that ALL citizens are liable for call-up to militia duty. That would put the keeping and bearing of arms in the realm of each and every citizen anyway. For the anti-gun-rights crowd's "collective" argument to work, it would have to be not simply the militia, but only those who have actually been called up for militia duty. That limits the RKBA to a select segment of the militia and can only be disingenuously called "collective". The "collective" is, therefore, the state and not the militia.
With the state being the collective, it could then arm the police because it would be within the realm of the state with that "interpretation" of the Second Amendment.
So, either way, you'd have the police constitutionally armed.
The way I see it, though, is that police officers are people like the rest of us and have just as much right to arm themselves in their self defense as the rest of us. The Second Amendment prohibits government to infringe upon the RKBA for the benefit of each and every one of us, be we the butcher, the baker, the candle stick maker, or a cop.
Woody
Look at your rights and freedoms as what would be required to survive and be free as if there were no government. Governments come and go, but your rights live on. If you wish to survive government, you must protect with jealous resolve all the powers that come with your rights - especially with the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Without the power of those arms, you will perish with that government - or at its hand. B.E. Wood
