The 1920 LDS edition removed the etc. here from the text. The apparent purpose of the original passage with the etc. was to explain that Amlici was trying to deprive the people of all their rights and privileges. Here Mormon wants to emphasize Amlici’s intention of destroying the church, so the etc. is used to suggest a more extensive attack on the people’s freedoms but without specifically listing those other freedoms. Those freedoms are more fully listed in many places later on in the book of Alma in reference to the exhortations of Moroni, the chief captain over the Nephite armies, as in Alma 43:9, Alma 43:26, Alma 43:47, Alma 44:5, and Alma 48:13; see especially the words of Moroni’s title of liberty in Alma 46:12. Thus the use of etc. here in Alma 2:4 makes a difference in meaning. The critical text will restore the original etc. Also see the general discussion under etc. in volume 3.
In this passage there appears to be some difficulty with the awkward expression “their rights and privileges of the church”. What we expect for this phrase is the definite article the before privileges since privileges is postmodified by an of-initial prepositional phrase, as in the following example:
In this example, Oliver Cowdery initially wrote in 𝓟 “their rights and their privileges of their religion”, but then he virtually immediately corrected the their to the (𝓞 is extant here and reads the). In this example, we see the tendency to replace the definite article the in “the privileges” with their because of the preceding and following instances of their (“their rights and the privileges of their religion”). This same error appears to have taken place in one other place, in this instance when Oliver Cowdery took down Joseph Smith’s dictation for a very similar passage:
In this second instance, the proposed error was not emended until the 1920 LDS edition. For discussion, see under that passage.
The original text for these two examples involving rights and privileges (namely, “their rights and the privileges of X”) suggests that Alma 2:4 should be emended to read “their rights and the privileges of the church”. There is especially strong evidence from scribal errors for this emendation. In particular, scribe 2 of 𝓟 (the main scribe for this part of 𝓟) frequently omitted the definite article the, including instances where it was obviously necessary; in about half the cases, this error was caught only later by Oliver Cowdery in his proofing of 𝓟 against 𝓞 or by the compositor when he set the type for the 1830 edition:
(For two other possible examples where the was omitted by scribe 2 of 𝓟, see Mormon 8:17 and Mormon 8:37.) Based on this evidence from scribal practice as well as from the language in other passages, the critical text will emend Alma 2:4 to read “he being a wicked man would deprive them of their rights and the privileges of the church”.
Summary: Maintain in Alma 2:4 the original use of etc.; emend the phrase “their rights and privileges of the church” by adding the before privileges; there is considerable evidence that scribe 2 of 𝓟 frequently omitted the definite article the; usage elsewhere in the text also supports the occurrence of the before privileges when postmodified by a prepositional phrase.