What do militia groups do

This piece outlines the history of the U. It concludes with an assessment of the large and escalating threat militias pose in the United States today, which is driven by alleged existential threats from government overreach and exacerbated by an increased blending of conspiracy theories and perceived legitimization from authority figures.

The modern U. Still, these militia groups drew inspiration from preceding far-right paramilitary groups, such as Posse Comitatus and the Christian Patriots Defense League , as well as adjacent extremist ideologies, such as the sovereign citizen and tax protest movements. The first of these militias mobilized in response to perceived government overreach, particularly with regard to weapons restrictions.

The first inciting incident was the Ruby Ridge standoff, during which white separatist Randy Weaver and his family engaged in an day siege with law enforcement at a remote cabin in northern Idaho after failing to appear for trial over a weapons charge.

This was followed by the Waco standoff—the law enforcement siege of a Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, after a failed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid. In both instances, civilians were killed or injured, including children. New gun control laws that came on the heels of these standoffs, including the Brady Bill and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban , drove a further increase in the number of militia groups and their membership.

Strong currents of white supremacy have existed in the militia movement from the beginning, though the extent of racial motivation varies widely between groups and individuals. Waco—which centered more exclusively on anti-government sentiment—gave the nascent movement some cover against allegations of racism after Ruby Ridge primarily mobilized white separatists. In , the Oklahoma City bombing —the second largest terrorist attack in U. Although neither Timothy McVeigh nor Terry Nichols were militia members, McVeigh was inspired by pro-militia and other conspiracy theory literature and had traveled to witness the Waco siege.

He conceived the attack on the Alfred P. Though militia groups remained active in the United States, the rate of violent incidents decreased by the late s and early s.

Contemporaneous data from the Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC —corroborated by data trends tracked by the FBI and other watchdog groups—indicate that the number of militia groups operating in the United States spiked to a high of in following the Oklahoma City attack, but fell to 68 by The SPLC and others attributed this decline to a variety of factors, including an increase in law enforcement activity and arrests targeting the groups, disillusionment among members, and loss of interest.

A third wave in the militia movement began during the presidential campaign and subsequent Trump presidency. Similarly, this growth was enabled by what militia members perceived as a more permissive, or even legitimizing, political environment. Militias were emboldened by policy changes and rhetoric that they perceived to validate their beliefs, such as hardline immigration control. For example, some militia groups expanded long-standing efforts to patrol the southwestern U.

This also contributed to an evolving relationship with some law enforcement agencies. Though militias traditionally opposed government oversight, some increasingly saw certain law enforcement agencies—such as CBP—as allies. A series of events in further mobilized militia extremists.

The Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown and mask requirements sparked a series of protests and public demonstrations, many of which were organized or attended by militia groups. Following the murder of George Floyd, armed militia members also attended racial justice and police reform protests, ostensibly to provide security to local businesses. Conspiracy theories claiming that the election of President Joe Biden was illegitimate and was instead won by Donald Trump drove a further increase in militia activity—including participation in the Stop the Steal movement.

Members of various militia groups, including major national umbrella groups or ideologically linked networks such as the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters, also participated in the January 6, , attack on the U.

For example, then-president Donald Trump made claims of a rigged election both before and after the results were tallied, and Illinois General Assembly member Chris Miller displayed a Three Percenters decal on his vehicle on January 6. Obama would usher in an international take-over of America.

These groups saw Barack Obama not only as a Black man, but as a foreigner, an alien, un-American, and not of this country. This belief was aided and accelerated by the birther movement, whose primary promoter was none other than Donald J. Whitman— after the kidnapping plot was revealed—he is seen as an inspirational figure and a cheerleader for violence. These groups have also been galvanized by the George Floyd protests, which is ironic.

The George Floyd demonstrators are also protesting the tyranny of state power against a minority. With the election days away and a possible indeterminate or contested result, what can and should states do? It is a bedrock of our civil law that the government—and only the government—is able to legally and legitimately use force in the maintenance of public safety. Every state has some kind of provision in its constitution that allows it to prohibit paramilitary activity that leads to intimidation, violence, and chaos.

Election intimidation is against the law. Contact us at letters time. In May , for example, a father-son team of sovereigns murdered two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over on the interstate while traveling through West Memphis, Ark. The sovereign citizens movement is rooted in racism and anti-Semitism , though most sovereigns, many of whom are African American, are unaware of their beliefs' origins. In the early s, the sovereign citizens movement attracted primarily white supremacists and anti-Semites, mainly because sovereign theories originated in groups that saw Jews as working behind the scenes to manipulate financial institutions and control the government.

Most early sovereigns, and some of those who are still on the scene believed that being white was a prerequisite to becoming a sovereign citizen.

They argued that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship to African Americans and everyone else born on U. Percenterism is one of three core components within the antigovernment militia movement, along with the Oath Keepers and traditional militia groups. The reference to 3 percent stems from the dubious historical claim that only 3 percent of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.

The Oath Keepers, another core component of the militia movement, was founded in by Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a veteran army paratrooper, Yale Law School graduate and former Ron Paul congressional staffer.

It primarily recruits current and former law enforcement, military and first-responder personnel, though it also accepts civilians. Unlike Three Percenterism, Oath Keepers was conceived as an organization with hierarchical leadership at national, state and local levels, one committed to establishing a network of activists it hopes will lay the groundwork for the creation of state militias.

These conspiracy theories identify grievances, both real and imagined, and demonize groups they deem responsible for them. Conspiracy propagandists often stop just short of offering a solution to the threats, instead leaving action up to movement members while being careful to maintain plausible deniability.

Bey Publications Pleasantville. Until her call for an armed march on Washington, D. More lasting in influence was a friend of Randy Weaver, John Trochmann, who with his brother and nephew formed the Militia of Montana in January Thompson and Trochmann, along with other militia pioneers and supporters, helped other groups to form.

Active militia groups arose in Ohio, Idaho, California, Florida and many other states. None grew so fast as those in Michigan, loosely formed into an umbrella group known as the "Michigan Militia," headed by a pastor and gun shop owner, Norm Olson. Militia activists recruited at gun shows, held public meetings in libraries and schools, and broadcast on shortwave radio, where talk-show hosts such as Michigan militia leader Mark Koernke were particularly popular.

The militia movement grew rapidly throughout , drawing little attention until that fall, when civil rights groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center released reports and articles on the new movement. By the following spring, the militia movement had finally begun to receive scrutiny by law enforcement, the media and the public.

Then the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, , created an entirely new environment. Several suspected links between the bombing and militia groups in Michigan -- later proved to be unfounded -- unleashed a storm of publicity about the militia movement around the country.

The militia for the first time faced the harsh glare of the spotlight. Overall, it did not fare particularly well. Some groups disbanded in the wake of the bombing, while other groups splintered. Norm Olson was kicked out by his own followers after he told reporters that the Japanese government had been involved in the Oklahoma City bombing.

However, the overall result of the bombing and its attendant publicity was actually a rise in the militia movement, because the media attention informed many potential supporters that such a movement actually existed. As a result, the militia movement grew in numbers and activity all through and into The militia even managed to "strike back" at times, as when, in the summer of , several militia leaders drew publicity to the Good Ol' Boys Roundup, a yearly festivity in Tennessee for federal and local law enforcement officers at which various racist and off-color activities had taken place.

Two federal agencies were forced to launch investigations of the event as a result, while militia leaders claimed that the media had been wrong all along -- it wasn't the militia movement that was racist but, rather, the federal government.

The investigations ended up revealing that the racist activity was committed by local Tennessee law enforcement officers. By early , virtually every state had at least one group, and most states had several. The movement had attracted the attention not only of the media but also of law enforcement, however, which had begun to discover signs of significant criminal activity.

As early as , members of the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, a nascent Virginia militia group, had been arrested on a variety of weapons charges. The following year an Oklahoma Christian Identity minister and militia leader, Ray Lampley, was arrested along with several followers for conspiring to blow up targets ranging from government buildings to the offices of civil rights organizations. But in , a series of investigations resulted in a number of major militia-related arrests, generally on illegal weapons, explosives and conspiracy charges.

Later that same month, members of the Washington State Militia found themselves in custody, while in October members of the West Virginia Mountaineer Militia were arres-ted on weapons charges and in connection with plans to blow up an F. These arrests, not surprisingly, had a depressing effect on the movement.

Other events in and also served to weaken the movement. The most ambitious attempt to network militia groups together, the Tri-States Militia, collapsed in when it was revealed that its leader had been accepting money from the F.

In March , the F. Although a few militia members traveled to Montana to support or aid the Freemen, by and large the movement failed to respond, a fact that embittered some of the more radical members.

This scenario would be repeated the following spring when the militia failed to come to the rescue of the besieged Republic of Texas near Fort Davis, Texas.