The 2nd amendment is an individual right

The anti 2nd amendment crowd uses a popular argument that the 'militia' referred to in the 2nd amendment is actually the national guard and not an individual right that exists for all american citizens, that the national guard handles security and protection of freedom for those in that particular state. If this were really the case and people had nothing to fear from their state 'militia, or national guard, then what happened on this 20th day of April in 1914 should give them all pause.

The Ludlow massacre was the death of about 20 people (mostly children) during an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families, including women and children, at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914. This attack was the culmination of a day-long fight between strikers and the militia (national guard) in which 17 strikers or their family members, three Guardsmen and one bystander were killed.

The fighting raged for the entire day. The militia was reinforced by non-uniformed mine guards later in the afternoon. At dusk, a passing freight train stopped on the tracks in front of the Guards' machine gun placements, allowing many of the miners and their families to escape to an outcrop of hills to the east called the "Black Hills." By 7:00 pm, the camp was in flames, and the militia descended on it and began to search and loot the camp. Louis Tikas, the Ludlow camp's main organizer, had remained in the camp the entire day and was still there when the fire started. Tikas and two other men were captured by the militia. Tikas and Lt. Karl Linderfelt, commander of one of two Guard companies had confronted each other several times in the previous months. While 2 militiamen held Tikas, Linderfelt broke a rifle butt over his head. Tikas and the other two captured miners were later found shot dead. Their bodies lay along the Colorado and Southern tracks for three days in full view of passing trains. The militia officers refused to allow them to be moved until a local of a railway union demanded the bodies be taken away for burial.

During the battle, four women and eleven children had been hiding in a pit beneath one tent where they were trapped when the tent above them caught fire. Two of the women and all of the children suffocated. These deaths became a rallying cry for the UMWA, who called the incident the "Ludlow Massacre."

In addition to the fire victims, Louis Tikas and the other men shot dead, there were another half dozen strikers, three company guards, and one militiaman killed in that day's fighting.

When they got news of what happened at Ludlow, the other camps broke out into rioting. For the next seven days they destroyed mine property and attacked the towns and guards with killing on both sides. This conflict, called the Colorado Coalfield War, was the most violent labor conflict in US history, with the death toll ranging from 69, in the Colorado government report, to 199 in the investigation ordered by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Governor Ammons sent a plea to President Wilson, who dispatched federal troops to restore order. They disarmed both sides (displacing, and often arresting, the militia in the process) and reported directly to Washington.

The UMWA finally ran out of money, and called off the strike on December 10, 1914.

In the end, the strikers failed to obtain their demands, the union did not obtain recognition, and many striking workers were replaced by new workers. Over 400 strikers were arrested, 332 of whom were indicted for murder. Only one man, John Lawson, leader of the strike, was convicted for murder, and that verdict was eventually overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court. Twenty-two National Guardsmen, including 10 officers, were court-martialed. Only Lt. Linderfelt was found guilty of assault for his attack on Louis Tikas, but was given only a light reprimand.

The founding fathers had reasons why they specifically mentioned that the right to bear arms belongs to all freemen and that this right is NOT to be infringed upon. The Ludlow Massacre is a prime example of why the 2nd amendment must remain uninhibited and fiercely protected by all individual americans.