The Rise of the Present-Day Militias

How have militias – groups of the right-wing extremist movement consisting of armed paramilitary groups – become a political extension of the times? It didn't just happen in response to concerns over the legality of gun ownership – very little politics involved in that issue. And, it didn't happen because these groups suddenly became invested in protecting their homes and families from criminal intrusions. It was much more calculated with connections to Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, and the current president of the United States.

The modern militia movement grew from a core of people in the United States who, beginning in the late 70's and the 80's felt the country was becoming too socially permissive, too passive in foreign affairs, and too lax in matters of national security.

Many of these people felt that the United States was ripe for invasion by an alliance of enemies, the Soviet Union being the primary threat. These people felt that they should build retreats in the rural backcountry of the US, engage in military training, and prepare to overthrow the invaders with guerilla war, remaking the US as they wanted after the inevitable victory. These people were called Survivalists.

The tragedy and coverup at Ruby Ridge in 1992 ignited the militia movement. Far-right groups poured in from all over the country to stand against what they saw as the persecution of an innocent family by a tyrannical federal government.

The result of the Waco siege in 1993 further energized militias in the United States. For right-wing militias and so-called Patriot groups, Waco amounted to evidence of a tyrannical, illegitimate government prepared to kill its own people. Right-wing extremists regularly invoke it as a defining moment, proof of Washington’s treachery. “Waco can happen at any given time,” Mike Vanderboegh, a prominent figure in the Patriot movement, told Retro Report. He added ominously: “But the outcome will be different this time. Of that I can assure you.”

During the Obama years, militia groups – nearly entirely men, and largely white – whole focus was on conspiracy-oriented hostility toward the federal government. They believed the federal government was in league with a shadowy conspiracy known as the “New World Order,” which had already taken over the rest of the world. This “order” supposedly going to strip Americans of their rights and their freedoms, according to Mark Pitcavage, a researcher on anti-government extremism with the Anti-Defamation League.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, anti-government militia membership, paralleling hate groups more broadly, ballooned during the Obama years, swelling

from 42 monitored groups in 2008 to over 300 by 2011.

Then, Donald Trump was elected, a man who shared the militias distaste for the deep state who had campaigned to demolish Washington from the inside. “You have all this confusion” after the election, said J.J. MacNab, who covers anti-government extremism with Forbes. “And confusion is actually bad, because these are movements that move forward based on who they hate. And if you can’t decide who you hate, if you’re actually going out there because you like something rather than hate something, that tears the movement apart.”

Pitcavage explains …

“As the militias cast about for another common foe to rally around, a handful of options presented themselves. Pivoting off of Trump’s campaign, certain militia-members eyed nonwhite immigrants, trawling the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal migrants.

“Others began building links with some of the foremost anti-Muslim groups across the country.

“Others yet held out hope for a resurgence of Black Lives Matter; militia members are 'extremely susceptible to becoming racially inflamed, and they tend to have an outsized and extraordinarily hostile reaction to what they would perceive as aggressiveness on the part of African-Americans.'”

(Mark Pitcavage quoted by Casey Michel. “How Militias Became

the Private Police for White Supremacists.” Politico. August 17, 2017. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/17/white-supremacists-militias-private-police-215498 )

Trump's presidency changed the target of militias' rage. They can no longer focused so much on Obama or candidate Clinton. Now it became blacks, Mexicans, and Muslims. (2018 figures list 612 anti-government groups nationally, including 216 active militias. The Southern Poverty Law Center says there were 36 anti-government groups in Ohio, including 13 militias.)

Trump even warned evangelical leaders in 2018 that a bad showing in the midterms could lead to violence. In response, the Oath Keepers announced what it called its “Spartan Training Group Program,” intended to quell the anti-Trump resistance with intimidation and, should things come to it, bullets. Among the skills the group is looking for in training camps attendees: experience with infantry tactics, sharpshooting, and small arms skills.

Under Trump, hate groups became a “semi-official government contractor. For example at Trump rallies in Minneapolis and Dallas in 2019, Republicans were escorted to and from their car by Oath Keepers, a militia group whose members fancy themselves as “guardians of the republic.” Or as the Southern Poverty Law Center calls them, “one of the largest radical anti-government groups in the U.S. today.”

The Trace has identified at least five occasions, spread across three states, where gun-carrying anti-establishment protesters provided security, demonstrated in support of, or worked for conservative local elected officials or Republican Party functionaries.

The Three Percenters are similar to the Oath Keepers though Three Percenters recruit more civilians.

In late July 2017 a legislative aide to Republican State Representative Mike Nearman

served four days in jail after she lent a gun to a Three Percenter named Matthew Heagy, who was prohibited from possessing firearms because of a felony record. The aide, Angela Roman, is also a Three Percenter, according to her attorney.

And the White House response to impeachment inquiries? Here is Trump's retweet of

Robert Jeffress, Southern Baptist (Evengelical) pastor on September 29, 2019 …

“...If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”

Before this tweet, the Oath Keepers account tweeted that, under the U.S. Constitution, “the militia (that’s us) can be called forth ‘to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.’ ... “All he has to do is call us up. We WILL answer the call.” Other Oath Keeper tweets also hint at violence: One states that “their favorite rifle is the AR 15.”

Heidi Beirich, Director of Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, described the current situation as a “turning point” for the militia movement. She said …

“Trump’s words and deeds have helped to cultivate an ethnic animus that has not in the past been part of the anti-government movement’s ideology.”

At the time of the American Revolutionary War, militias were groups of able-bodied men who protected their towns, colonies, and eventually states. When the Constitution was drafted, the militia was a state-based institution. Consider the climate of the United States at the time. The country had just fought a war, won its independence and was expanding west. There were plenty of reasons to feel unsafe, and so "security" had a very palpable meaning. The nations was in a survival mode.

The legal consensus is that the Second Amendment applies to individual rights, within reasonable regulations. Jesse Choper, a UC Berkeley Law professor emeritus and the former Berkeley Law dean, says …

“The Second Amendment gives you the right to bear arms. But really that’s the beginning point of the conversation. As is true with most of the Bill of Rights, the intent is not totally clear, and in fact, the language in the Second Amendment is particularly confusing.”

To me, it is evident change not only impacts the physical, but also ideas and philosophical beliefs. The Constitution of the United States is over 240 years old. When the framers crafted this document the world and the United States were different places altogether.

American activist Darryl D. Perry (2019) says the system was built to protect tyranny. Perry says …

“If we subscribe to the fact that humans are vulnerable and subject to mistakes, logic dictates that changes must be made.

“Our Founding Fathers were no different. They made laws for the times because they did not have a crystal ball to look into the future.

“And while their intentions were admirable at the time, they had no forethought of the creation of killing machines such as an AR-15, automatic firearms, silencers and the like, nor the mental instability of individuals.

“Therefore, the burden to carry out their true mission on keeping this nation safe falls on our shoulders, whether we like it or not.”

And so, the Second Amendment reads:

“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.”

That statement is as much a burden as it is a freedom. It does not grant untouchable rights to extremist paramilitary groups or to those who use guns in force or anger to maim and murder innocent citizens. The two adjectives that denote the true weight of the amendment are “well regulated” and “security.” To assume the gun lobby and modern militias are well regulated and add to the security of the nation is to ignore the present intentions of those organizations. And, to refuse to insure that these adjectives are in check is to condone gun violence, an epidemic in the United States of America.