The Impending Threat of Militias 

Armed to the teeth and often living on fortified compounds, militias are peculiar to the U.S. and an exclusively American phenom! They exist because of ultra liberal gun laws that would be anathema in any other country! Also known as White Supremacists, Alt Right, and Patriots, these hate groups have made a huge comeback since the 2016 election and are, in general, avid Donald Trump supporters.

Their basic ideology of hardline constitutionalism – fighting federal overreach and supporting local supremacy – has gained a greater acceptance nationwide. 

In the past six months, militia groups have been a presence at racial justice demonstrations where their members have got into ugly confrontations with Black Lives Matter protestors. 

Long aligned with anti-government causes, they have become more visible at “reopen” rallies that challenge coronavirus shutdowns. 

In Michigan, on April 30, hundreds of heavily armed Trump supporters, attempted to shove their way into the legislative chamber of the state capitol in Lansing, to protest extending Covid-19 lockdown orders. (Check out weblinked YouTube video and Vox article below.) Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) had pushed for the continuation of stay-at-home orders. But, despite several thousand Covid deaths in the state, Trump continued to inflame militia supporters with incendiary tweets demanding that the governor reopen schools, restaurants, and businesses.

Ruby Ridge and Waco

I met a reformed former militia member when I was a working journo. Some of the things I heard were chilling and I’ve reported on them in the past. (Note: these are facts, not opinions, and can be verified!)

In 1992, the U.S. Marshals Service (the oldest federal law enforcement agency that works with state and local bodies to arrest fugitives) went to a northern Idaho location that became known as Ruby Ridge. Their task was to find fugitive Randy Weaver who had failed to attend his trial on firearms charges. The siege at Ruby Ridge dragged on for weeks and ended in the deaths of an FBI agent and Weaver family members. Aryan Nation and other far-right Neo Nazi groups traveled to Ruby Ridge from all over the country to support Weaver against what they saw as persecution by a tyrannical federal government. 

The incident at Ruby Ridge marked the rebirth or revival of a modern militia movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has monitored the far right since the early 1980s. 

In 1993, cult leader David  Koresh and his Branch Davidians in Waco, TX refused to allow law enforcement to enter their premises to serve a search warrant: 76 members including 25 children were killed in a bungled FBI-ATF-military raid. Investigators later found that suicidal cult members - who were preparing for the Apocalypse and the Armageddon - probably lit the fires that engulfed the compound!

The Feds are coming for your Guns and Property!

The twin denouements of Ruby Ridge and Waco caused the Clinton-era FBI to lose credibility and trust. It also boosted far right narratives whose central theme had become: the corrupt Feds are coming for your guns and your property! 

Radical fringe groups with extreme anti-government beliefs began to stockpile arms in the expectation of defending themselves against a totalitarian “New World Order” — their favorite scenario (touted on their websites) was of jack-booted agents persecuting patriots while swooping in on black helicopters to establish world government! (The evil United Nations also had a role in there, somewhere!)

Ruby Ridge and Waco became rallying cries for many militia groups as it did for Timothy McVeigh who masterminded the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 civilians and injured about 700 others. McVeigh had strong links to Michigan militia. 

The myth of Ruby Ridge and Waco remain potent even today while McVeigh is considered a hero to militia groups!

McVeigh Wannabes!

In 2017, the FBI found an alleged copycat alt-right extremist, Jerry Varnell, who planned to blow up an Oklahoma bank using a vehicle bomb similar to the one that McVeigh used. Varnell hoped to spark a revolt against the federal government and told an FBI informant in a text message, according to court papers, “I'm going after government officials." 

Varnell is by no means the only McVeigh wannabe! A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says that about a dozen people have been arrested since, including one who murdered two men on a train in Portland, OR for coming to the aid of two Muslim women who were being harassed. A blogger on the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website has suggested building a memorial to McVeigh — several militia members agree!

What are the Militias up to now?  

In the current era, militia groups — with their embrace of high-powered weapons — have turned their attention to other activities. They are acting as vigilante immigration enforcers on the southern border (including, killing unarmed Mexican teens) and as violent opponents to peaceful BLM protesters. Their activities were overlooked by law enforcement during recent unrest in Kenosha, WI, when Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two men. 

Shared among the groups — comprised exclusively of White men — is contempt for BLM and its supposed ties to radical left-wing violence. All militias appear to have explicit, extreme, and racist ideologies, say Anti-Defamation League researchers who monitor the groups online.

Driven by Trump’s often misleading messaging, gun-toting militias have escalated their appearances nationwide, fueling concern among law enforcement and hate group watchers that they may cause more violence. 

They have squared off with BLM protesters all over the country and stood outside looted stores. Hundreds of them recently gathered in Gettysburg, PA driven by a threat of flag burning that turned out to be a hoax!

Many are also inspired by disinformation they read online about violence and organized looting campaigns tied to BLM. Trump and the Justice Department have exaggerated the role of the anarchist group Antifa without evidence, further provoking the militias.

For instance, there is a trove of Internet messages about billionaire philanthropist George Soros — the center of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories — paying for buses to carry BLM protestors to rallies, all of which turned out to be false!

Second Amendment Questions

Militias have long thrived across America due to the Second Amendment’s directive: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Clad in fatigues, with their trigger fingers at the ready on their loaded, battlefield-style rifles, held across heavy-duty Kevlar vests and other body armour, these quasi-troops like to show off, talking to each other on radios and headsets! The sight of grown men playing with guns would be outrageously funny if it wasn’t also deadly!

Despite the Second Amendment’s language about a "well-regulated Militia,” the U.S. Supreme Court has long said that the right to bear arms belongs to individuals alone, and does not prevent states from writing laws that bar the creation of citizen militias.

All 50 states now have similar laws or constitutional provisions that prohibit private military activity, according to the Georgetown University Law Center. After the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, the Law Center won court orders that barred individuals and organizations from returning to the city in groups of two or more with anything that could be used as a weapon at a rally.

“Open Carry”

“Open carry” refers to the practice of carrying openly visible firearms in public.

Changing gun laws — such as proliferating open carry provisions, the end of the assault weapons ban, and the Supreme Court’s Heller decision — mean that groups can bring (largely unchallenged) semiautomatic weapons, sidearms, and body armor into public places in a way that was not previously possible.

Historically, most states either prohibited or strongly regulated the carrying of firearms in public. Over the past three decades, however, state laws have changed drastically. Laws have been weakened to permit more and more people to carry guns in public places and eliminate local law enforcement’s ability to keep potentially dangerous people from publicly carrying guns.

There is one bright spot in this rigmarole! Although 44 states make it legal to openly carry a long gun in public, armed citizens would generally not have the right to use deadly force while protecting someone else's business.

Local Supremacy

The ideology of “local supremacy” is central to militia beliefs. They consider that the only real authority in law enforcement is the often pro-militia local sheriff and that the Feds (i.e., the Federal Government and its agencies such as the FBI, the ATF, the Marshals Service, and others) have no jurisdiction at all.

Militia groups have mounted direct challenges to the authority of federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management resulting in agents facing violent harassment in the course of their work.

Contemporary patriot movement groups such as the Oath Keepers, which draws its members from military, law enforcement, and first responders (mostly rank and file), and the Three Percenters (also called 3 Percenters, 3% ers, and III% ers, an American and Canadian far-right paramilitary group) advocate strong adherence to the Constitution and gun ownership rights, and have all protested about an overreaching federal government. 

The various Light Foot Militias, seen on the streets of Charlottesville, profess different forms of anti-government ideology, such as fears about gun confiscation and grievances about federal land management practices. Some in fact claim to disavow racism and White Supremacy!

Members of the “Boogaloo” movement - whose stated aim is to provoke a second Civil War - range in ideology from anarchists to White Supremacists and have proved to be among the most violent. The FBI has arrested several members, including two charged with the murder of a federal security guard in an Oakland, CA courthouse in May, amid protests in the city.

Unlike earlier waves of the militia movement which was mainly confined to rural areas, newer groups have — since Trump’s inauguration — come fully armed into Democrat-controlled cities. This has been evident during the wave of rightwing protests claiming to provide security and protection for “free speech.”

Down with Taxes!

In addition to stockpiling firearms, most militia groups don’t believe in paying taxes: property tax, income tax, sales tax, but many expect to get a government dole!  

White Supremacists have long said that the Feds would put patriots into concentration camps and claim to know where in the continental U.S. this secret network of camps is located. Maps have also been circulated!

Some militias are less belligerent than others: they are chiefly survivalists, stockpiling food and water and building underground shelters, preparing for cataclysmic disruptions in the social and political order, including total financial collapse, environmental disaster, nuclear explosions, and epidemics. 

On the whole, they hate Jews, Muslims, non-Whites, non-Christians! Some think that Trump is the Second Coming - of Christ! 

Their numbers multiplied during the Obama Administration: they couldn’t stomach the idea of a Black as president! They’re often poor, uneducated, and prone to alcohol and opioid addiction! 

Emboldened in the Trump Era

More emboldened in the Trump era, militia groups — who were once very secretive — are organizing openly on social media. 

Some of the far right ideas have been brought into the mainstream by radio broadcasters such as Alex Jones, who has embraced the 9/11 “truth” movement (which asserts that the U.S. Government may be complicit in the September 11 attacks) and united it with other bizarre conspiracy themes within the militia movement. 

The willingness of militia groups to turn out in large numbers in volatile situations is a striking development. In Charlottesville, in 2017, Virginia’s then governor, Terry McAuliffe, held back local law enforcement because they felt outgunned by militia.

The conclusion is that the militias are far more menacing in 2020 than they were in the 1990s. 

No Holds Barred!

Many militia groups once lived quietly in the American heartland, cut off from society, inventing imaginary scenarios to kill police but not doing much about it until now when they have a kindred spirit in D.C. openly encouraging them! Now, it’s no holds barred!  

According to militia trackers, these groups - such as the newer “Boogaloos” - are fundraising like crazy and recruiting like crazy, getting prepped for Civil War 2.0! 

Let us thank our stars that the FBI is taking them seriously!  

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

October 10, 2020

Armed protesters enter Michigan's state capitol demanding end to coronavirus lockdown

Armed protesters entered Michigan’s state Capitol during rally against stay-at-home order