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U.S. Training ‘Well Regulated Militias’ – for Foreigners

October 26, 2021 By David Codrea for Firearms News

U.S. Training 'Well Regulated Militias' – for Foreigners
A U.S. Army soldier allowing a young Latvian citizen to examine his M4 rifle during the “Dragoon Ride 2” exercise in Rezekne, Latvia. (Raimonds Kalva / Shutterstock photo)

“[A]s the Global War on Terror draws down in scope and scale, and as senior Pentagon leaders and White House officials turn their attention towards the next potential conflict — ARSOF [Army Special Operations Forces] is shifting its priorities,” Army Times reports. “Their new mission: Create resistance networks that make invasions by Russia or China too costly for those powers to even attempt.”

“Nations supported under the ROC [Resistance Operating Concept] are encouraged to establish the legal and organizational framework for a resistance and bring it under the official control of their armed forces,” the article explains. “One such example is the Estonian Defence League, a volunteer paramilitary organization whose 16,000 members are organized under Tallinn’s defense ministry and receive training from U.S. special operations.”

So, “a well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State?” Who knew?

So, What Are We? Chopped Liver?

As for “official control,” the Founders envisioned the States would preserve their interests in such matters, and that “Congress shall have the power… To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”

Congress hasn’t done that, though, has it? Instead, we have the National Guard, along with the ubiquitous fiction that it is now the militia, being spread by people who want us to swallow that belief on their say-so. Little remembered is the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s 1982 report on “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” which concluded, “Such a reading fails to note that the Framers used the term ‘militia’ to relate to every citizen capable of bearing arms, and that Congress has established the present National Guard under its power to raise armies, expressly stating that it was not doing so under its power to organize and arm the militia.”

The exploitable confusion is no doubt heightened by the wording of U.S. Code, which defines the two classes of militia: “(1)the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2)the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

That second classification though, per lawyer and Constitutional scholar Dr. Edwin Vieira, is in itself an example of Congressional “malfeasance… beyond the pale.

“Under no circumstances may Congress leave the Militia unorganized, unarmed, or undisciplined–let alone knowingly and intentionally impose such conditions,” Vieira instructs. The very term is “an oxymoron.”  If you think about it in terms of the core “security of a free State” purpose of having a militia of the whole people, he’s right.

Speaking of free states, while the power to raise armies is the purview of the Congress, state defense forces were established by some (17 plus Puerto Rico), but not all states, to be deployed within a state. The State Guard Association of the United States exists “to advocate for the advancement and support of regulated state military forces established by state governments,” don’t look for teeth to match the mission statement. The last two defense force units, the Ohio Military Reserve and the Tennessee State Guard, were the last units trained for deployment with issued weapons, but no more. The Tennessee Guard’s role is now to provide unarmed support to the National Guard during deployment, with organized firearms-related activities are limited to marksmanship competitions. What was once the Ohio Military Reserve, formally a military police unit, was reorganized to provide emergency management support and of late has been assisting food banks during the COVID-19 scare by packing, transporting and distributing food and serving meals. State guard units are examples of the organized militia.

And forget what the Founders knew from the War of the Rebellion. Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys are a thing of the past, with many states enacting laws against unorganized militias, also known as “private militias”, and civilian military training. As for what’s still out there, look for most of those to be heavily infiltrated with state and federal confidential informants and outright provocateurs looking for low-hanging fruit to make headlines off of. Let’s be careful out there.

All of which raises the question: Why is it “we” will do for foreign nations what “we” refuse to do for our own?

Consider that a rhetorical question.  Those whose prime directive is to amass power have no interest in “the whole people” being armed and trained. Quite the opposite. They know perfectly well why the Founders feared a standing army and insisted “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

If anything, the U.S. military command, like the rest of the political establishment, is actively hostile to the militia concept. The narrative the government and its media cheerleaders are pushing is that armed citizens who believe in the nation of their fathers, particularly those of European ancestry, are not just racists, but “the greatest domestic terror threat” the country faces.

“We’re the guys with the guns,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley blustered when perpetuating the narrative fiction that President Donald Trump was plotting a government takeover. Credit Milley with knowing the Mao quote about where political power comes from before he called his Chinese counterpart to pledge sabotaging his chain of command and spilling top-secret beans if the time comes for war.

For the Children

It’s interesting the Army Times article also highlights the Estonian Defence League because unlike in the Land of the Second Amendment, they do not demand hysterical ignorance about guns for young people. The Noored Kotkad (Young Eagles), while not a defense organization per se, is “is a patriotic youth paramilitary organization” for boys that among other things, includes “shooting firearms” among its activities. And the Kodutütred (Home Daughters, the Defense League’s girl corps), enhances in them a sense of “love for home and fatherland.”

Imagine the outrage here if the military supported a U.S. organization that promoted these values, starting with teaching children how to shoot. All the right boxes are checked to get the League disparaged as “white nationalists” and fascists. That and they only recognize two genders?

Meanwhile, our “woke” National Archives, signals shame for home and fatherland by posting “harmful language alerts” on its online catalog. And while it insists the intent was not to specifically target Founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it’s “explanation” just feels like no one running things there knows when to stop digging:

“[S]ome of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance … Some items may: reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more…”

Your Tax Dollars at Work

In short, our government is spending untold dollars to prop up patriotism in other countries while arming and training their civilians to defend their homelands. Meanwhile, the administration and its agencies, with plenty of media cheerleading, is working all the angles to disarm U.S. civilians and label armed heritage Americans, including survivalists, preppers, and believers in civil defense programs, as terrorists and as racists. School programs and endless public notices poison the minds of young people against true “commonsense gun safety,” which can only be achieved through disciplined training. That, in turn, can only be achieved if morality and accountability are non-negotiable expectations from the start.

As tempting as it is to blame it all on the Democrats, the Trump administration (and Republicans who held House and Senate majorities from 2014 to 2019) did ZERO in regard to civilian preparedness over four years. That’s despite all of the “best people” he assembled, and even though we experienced real global and domestic threats, widespread riots and the COVID19 “pandemic.”

The bottom line (not that anyone should expect to see it happen unless those in power have no choice and those promoting it have a credible “or else” attached to their demands) is that the Founders’ prescription for “the security of a free State” will never be actualized until the Constitutional provisions they devised have been implemented – and that all hinges on no infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Take that out and the whole house of cards collapses.


Virus Plan Anticipates 18-Month Pandemic, Widespread Shortagages

Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan – The New York Times – Wednesday, March 18, 2020

WASHINGTON — A federal government plan to combat the coronavirus warned policymakers last week that a pandemic “will last 18 months or longer” and could include “multiple waves,” resulting in widespread shortages that would strain consumers and the nation’s health care system.

The 100-page plan, dated Friday, the same day President Trump declared a national emergency, laid out a grim prognosis for the spread of the virus and outlined a response that would activate agencies across the government and potentially employ special presidential powers to mobilize the private sector.

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Among the “additional key federal decisions” listed among the options for Mr. Trump was invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950, a Korean War-era law that authorizes a president to take extraordinary action to force American industry to ramp up production of critical equipment and supplies such as ventilators, respirators and protective gear for health care workers.

“Shortages of products may occur, impacting health care, emergency services, and other elements of critical infrastructure,” the plan warned. “This includes potentially critical shortages of diagnostics, medical supplies (including PPE and pharmaceuticals), and staffing in some locations.” P.P.E. refers to personal protective equipment.

The plan continued: “State and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure and communications channels, will be stressed and potentially less reliable. These stresses may also increase the challenges of getting updated messages and coordinating guidance to these jurisdictions directly.”

The plan, which was unclassified but marked “For Official Use Only // Not For Public Distribution or Release,” was shared with The New York Times as Mr. Trump escalated his efforts to curb the spread of the virus. After weeks of playing down the seriousness of the pandemic, saying it would miraculously disappear, Mr. Trump began shifting to a more sober tone during a news conference on Friday announcing the national emergency.

Much of the plan is bureaucratic in nature, describing coordination among agencies and actions that in some cases have already been taken, like urging schools to close and large events to be canceled. But its discussion of the Defense Production Act came as lawmakers and others urged Mr. Trump to invoke its powers.

“While the administration’s response has so far lacked the urgency this crisis has called for, there are still steps you can take to mitigate the damage,” Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump on Tuesday. “Invoking the powers vested in the DPA will enable the federal government to step up and take the type of aggressive steps needed in this time of uncertainty.”

Another letter sent last week by 57 House Democrats led by Representative Andy Levin of Michigan made similar points: “During World War II, our country adapted to the demands of the time to produce mass quantities of bombers, tanks, and many smaller items needed to save democracy and freedom in the world. We know what the demands of this time are, and we must act now to meet these demands.”

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, said that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper told him on Tuesday that the Pentagon would provide federal health workers with five million respirator masks and 2,000 specialized ventilators. “The American public is on wartime footing in terms of battling the spread of this disease, and the Pentagon has to be part of the effort to help protect the health and safety of the American people,” Mr. Reed said.

But Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that he was not ready to invoke the Defense Production Act. “We’re able to do that if we have to,” he told reporters. “Right now, we haven’t had to, but it’s certainly ready. If I want it, we can do it very quickly. We’ve studied it very closely over two weeks ago, actually. We’ll make that decision pretty quickly if we need it. We hope we don’t need it. It’s a big step.”

Passed in 1950 shortly after American troops went to war defending South Korea against an invasion from North Korea, the Defense Production Act was based on powers used during World War II and authorized the president to require businesses to prioritize and accept contracts necessary for national defense.

Over the years, its scope has been expanded to include domestic preparedness and national emergencies. A president can make direct loans or loan guarantees and purchase commitments, subsidies or other incentives to influence industry to help in times of crisis.

Other key decisions outlined as options for the president include distributing medical supplies and equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile, providing money to states to help them meet demands caused by the coronavirus outbreak and prioritizing the distribution of essential resources to focus on areas most in need.

“The spread and severity of Covid-19 will be difficult to forecast and characterize,” the government plan said. It warned of “significant shortages for government, private sector, and individual U.S. consumers.”

ARTICLES FROM VARIOUS MAGAZINES:

AMERICAN’S FIRST FREEDOM MAGAZINE by Susanne Edward – Monday, December 23, 2019:

The women cradled AK-47s as if they were cradling their children. They never intended to be soldiers. They did not belong to the once U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But, after years of turmoil in a northeastern enclave of Syria, most of the women in the region had learned to handle firearms with the same normalcy as they’d once learned to keep their homes immaculate and to cook Kurdish delights for their burgeoning families.

I sat on the floor of a forsaken home in Kobane, Syria, a home I am sure was once teeming with music and fresh naan, but it had been drained of color in the months following ISIS’ occupation of the city. I was there to watch skilled women teach the not-so-skilled how to handle firearms.

They called themselves “feminists” and belonged to a group called the “Kongra Star,” an all-female group founded in 2005.

When I met them, they’d long since begun to see guns as tools of freedom. When I asked if they’d ever willingly give up their guns, even if or when peace comes to this region, they told me in no uncertain terms they would not. They’d learned too well how tenuous freedom is and had no interest in ever trading in arms for perceived safety.

Still, I am not going to tell you they are all good and that others in the region are all bad, as it’s much more complicated than that. What I found, though, was they had discovered how critical having firearms and knowing how to use them is for any people who wish to be free.

“We will not let the responsibility of defending our land and our rights fall only to the men,” said one woman as she passionately pulled apart and then re-assembled her gun over and over again.

Newcomers sat in a circle learning the basics. The youngest was 18; the oldest was over 60 years old.

When the Kongra Star members heard of a possible clash with Turkey or other militia outfits in the region, they’d rush with whatever arms they had and form giant human shields in the hopes of preventing any advance into the terrain they believe belongs to them and the Kurdish dream.

When it comes to the women who officially took up arms as fighters in the SDF, or in the long-running militia known as the YPJ, I found their role to be equal to their male counterparts. There was no debate about whether females should be shielded from the frontlines or relegated to craggy bases or checkpoints dotting the toffee-colored plains or rugged mountains. They were very involved in the fight. They took thousands of casualties in battles with ISIS.

Their training—many joined with little to no previous weapons experience—also mirrored that of the male fighters. This training typically consisted of around six weeks of drills, physical training, firearms instruction and basic first aid.

It was only in the dead of night—when they trekked back to their soiled mattresses on the floor of a base, an abandoned shack with no electricity and little in the way of water or fresh food, to catch a few hours of disturbed sleep—that I could see the emotional impact the endless fighting had on their calloused exteriors. In oversized nightshirts and bare feet, the women unwrapped their tight buns and combed through one another’s waist-length hair. The sun-worn crevices in their faces seemed to soften. Some glanced down at their wedding rings, sullied by the weeks of grit. Others re-dressed their wounds. Some prayed, some stared absently into the walls that were pockmarked with shell holes.

But there was no self-pity, tears or even complaints. These women knew without a doubt they were fighting for their people, the Kurdish people, to live freely.

Other women I met brought that fight away from the military domain and into the political one.

In 2018, the author met Hevrin Khalaf in Syria. Khalaf was the secretary-general of the “Future Syria Party,” and a strong advocate for individual rights. Shortly thereafter, Khalaf was assassinated.


In April of 2018, some seven months after ISIS was defeated in its self-proclaimed caliphate capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, I met an especially remarkable young woman named Hevrin Khalaf. She was the secretary-general of the newly formed “Future Syria Party,” which intended to incorporate all Syrians regardless of religion or ethnicity and to ensure that the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship would not re-impose its iron rule once the protracted war came to an end.

Hevrin was dressed sharply in a suit with her black hair smoothed behind her ears. She sat in her office in a mostly barren ivory building on the edges of that dilapidated city. She had an aura of serenity, making tea and speaking softly as mortar rounds cracked in the distance.

“We wanted our base in Raqqa because these people have lived under the black flag; they know what it is to lose life and still want to live again,” she told me.

In the days immediately after the sudden troop withdrawal from northern Syria in mid-October, which triggered an invasion from the Turkish army resolved to cleanse the area of what the Turks consider Kurdish “terrorists,” Hevrin was on her way to that office building when her vehicle was ambushed. She was pulled from her car and dragged to the dusty road. Her porcelain face was smashed into the rubble and bullets riddled her body until it was lifeless. The horrific ordeal was filmed and splashed across social media, prompting international outrage.

Contacts in the region tell me that Hevrin’s death has only fueled their desire for freedom. After meeting them, I have no doubt they will not, cannot, abandon their dream. But in them, I also found a common bond. In my many conversations with these women, and especially in their actions, I found them to be a remarkable example of how the right to defend our own lives and our freedom is fundamental.

When I left Syria, I left with a greater appreciation for the Second Amendment of the U.S. Bill of Rights.

FIREARMS NEWS MAGAZINE

Ignoring Core Purpose Makes 2nd Amendment More Vulnerable to Infringements: The Militia Aspect, Part 1 by David Codrea December 2019:

Ignoring Core Purpose Makes 2nd Amendment More Vulnerable to Infringements: The Militia Aspect, Part 1

Unless the government gets back to basics on the Second Amendment, legal recognition of the right to keep and bear arms will be vulnerable to new edicts and court decisions supporting infringements. Unless gun owners have that expectation of their representatives, their president and their appointed judges, the long slide down Nancy Pelosi’s “slippery slope “ will continue –to the bottom and to the pit below that.

For government, that means a return to the Constitution and the committed adoption of a Bill of Rights culture. It means binding the branches down to their enumerated powers and actualizing the lofty goals of the Preamble, all intended “to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

For the National Rifle Association, that means holding paid staff and officers accountable for fidelity to Association Bylaws, just as citizens are supposed to hold representatives responsible for adhering to the Constitution. For starters, every member should have a current copy and be cognizant of the mandated purposes and objectives:

“To protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially with reference to the inalienable right of the individual American citizen guaranteed by such constitution to acquire, possess, collect, exhibit, transport, carry, transfer ownership of, and enjoy the right to use firearms in order that the people may always be in a position to exercise their legitimate individual rights of self-preservation in defense of family, person and property as well as to serve effectively in the appropriate Militia for the common defense of the republic and the individual liberty of its citizens.”

Don’t Be Afraid of the ‘M’ Word

“Appropriate Militia”? What kind of crazy gun extremist talk is that?

What’s insane is ignoring what the Founders knew to be “necessary to the security of a free State.” That the concept was allowed to wither and become comatose had everything to do with political treachery, and with a disengaged citizenry allowing it to happen while they focused on economic and other pursuits.

The power and the duty, however, never went away.

The Constitution elaborates:

“The Congress shall have Power … To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress … The President shall be Commander in Chief of … the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…”  

The Militia hasn’t been “replaced by the National Guard” as latter-day gun-grabbers would have us believe. The Militia Act of 1903 (the Dick Act), which replaced the 1792 Militia Acts, clarified that the Militia is not the National Guard through that recognition of the unorganized Militia.

That’s recognized statutorily in United States Code, which defines:

“The classes of the Militia are— (1) the organized Militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized Militia, which consists of the members of the Militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

Here’s what here’s what the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the United States Senate, Ninety-Seventh Congress had to say:

“Congress has established the present National Guard under its own power to raise armies, expressly stating that it was not doing so under its power to organize and arm the Militia.”

The Supreme Court, in its infamous Miller decision, nonetheless recognized the function of the Militia, defined as “all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense

bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time,” was — and still is — to field citizen soldiers. These citizens bore arms that were suitable for that purpose, “ordinary military equipment” intended to be taken into “common defense” battles.

The Militia did not assemble on the green bearing clubs and spears. They came with the intent to match and best a professional military threat.

A modern Militia would require citizens to keep and bear exactly what the gun-grabbing politicians are trying to take away from them, what they pejoratively denounce as “weapons of war.”

But what about the “well regulated” part?

That applies to when called into service, under the “organizing, arming and disciplining [and] governing” functions of Congress. As for how that would work in practice, Alexander Hamilton gave us some insights in The Federalist Papers : No. 29:

“To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated Militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss … Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped…”

As an aide to George Washington, Hamilton understood that soldiering was a profession and that people had lives and trades that precluded attaining that level of qualification. He also recognized we are entitled to what even modern courts have recognized as “ordinary military equipment” that is “in common use at the time” and “that its use could contribute to the common defense.” Once they show up for Militia duty, citizens are subject to the discipline. That said, the equipment they keep and bear in everyday life is not what is “regulated” and, significantly, there is no power delegated to any branch of government to authorize an override of “shall not be infringed.”

That’s where another criticism, that “unorganized” means such Militia members will be hopelessly inadequate to the task comes into play. It’s undeniable that Washington was unhappy “with the undisciplined conduct and poor battlefield performance of the American Militia.” It’s also undeniable that discipline was introduced, notably through the efforts of Baron von Steuben, and the War of the Rebellion was won. But it also speaks to mistakes learned, and why the Founders made provisions in the Constitution to provide training and discipline when the Militia was called forth. “Unorganized” does not mean “disorganized.”

Curiously though, our Militia roots have been all but ignored, and not just by the political establishment. The gun groups, especially NRA, which mandates defense of the “appropriate Militia” in its Bylaws, focus their efforts on “self-defense.” That’s a worthy enough goal, but only a partial one that does not promote “the security of a free State” rationale of the Second Amendment.

As a result, the arguments revolve around carry laws, bans and arcane stare decisis (precedent) rulings, with more attention paid to that than to what the Founders intended. That means some judge with an agenda can get away with ruling that because you have a gun for home defense that has not (yet) been banned, you don’t need one the state won’t allow you to have. Ditto because laws provide for “may issue,” all you need is good cause, as defined by those who prefer “may not issue” as the default. Or you can’t carry openly because “shall issue” concealed carry permits are issued. And unless there’s permit “reciprocity,” you can’t carry into another state.

The fact is, the last thing “progressive” rulers want, posturing about what great champions of the people they are notwithstanding, is to allow the most egalitarian power-sharing arrangement between citizens and government ever devised, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It’s also the last thing most so-called “conservative” politicians want too, in their desperation to hold onto the status quo.

They no doubt fear that as their despotism ratchets up, a trained Militia would pose a threat to the “monopoly of violence” that totalitarians require. That’s why those who would rule are so rabidly opposed to the last part of the Second Amendment mandating “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” While Amendment II does not specifically articulate a right to rebellion, Amendments IX and X, along with the commitment made in the Declaration of Independence “[t]hat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,” makes Founding intentions pretty clear.

They wanted their creation of a limited government bound by enumerated powers to endure. But should it ever be perverted into a tyranny by evil men, they installed a last-resort fail-safe for their Posterity who would be free.

That’s why reinstating an effective and Constitutional Militia system is what will be necessary to reestablish a Second Amendment culture and provide for true security and freedom. Once NRA puts out its self-created dumpster fire and works out its management problems, and if the Association decides to actually get serious about its Bylaws, vigorously backing such a movement would also defuse accusations that its initials stand for “Not Relevant Anymore.”

I intend to come back soon with another installment exploring how to reintroduce and implement “the Militia of the several States,” and explore some of the legal arguments giving us a roadmap of how we get from here to there.

About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. In addition to being a regular featured contributor for Firearms Newsand AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts onTwitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

FIREARMS NEWS MAGAZINE

Tazewell County Forms Militia in Response to New Virginia Gun Laws January 2020:

Tazewell County Forms Militia in Response to New Virginia Gun Laws
Source: Jim Grant

In response to the wave of proposed anti-gun legislation in Virginia, many of its cities and counties have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries. One county, in particular, took it a step further at their December 3rd County Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting.

In addition to passing their Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution, the county also passed a Militia Resolution. This resolution formalizes the creation, and maintenance of a defacto civilian militia in the county of Tazewell. And to get a better understanding why the council members passed this resolution, Firearms News reached out to one of its members, Thomas Lester. Mr. Lester is a member of the council, as well as a professor of American History and Political Science.

Firearms News: Councilman Lester, what are the reasons behind passing this new resolution, and what does it mean for the people of Tazewell County?

Tom Lester: We understand the implications of this new resolution are potentially enormous, but we also understand the political importance of making the county a Second Amendment Sanctuary.

Declaring our county a Second Amendment Sanctuary is a great first step, however, Virginia is unique because of its constitution. Under Article 1 section 13 of the VA Constitution, VA must maintain a well-regulated militia composed of its people to validate its authority.

This is the political subdivision of legislature from which VA politicians derive authority – an authority expressly stated in the VA constitution.

This subsection makes it the responsibility of counties to maintain a militia, not a National Guard or other standing army.

This is because the purpose of the militia is not just to protect the county from domestic danger, but also protect the county from any sort of tyrannical actions from the Federal government. Our constitution is designed to allow them to use an armed militia as needed. If the (Federal) government takes those arms away, it prevents the county from fulfilling their constitutional duties. But, this is not limited to just our county, but also as part of a network of sister counties showing solidarity for both Virginia’s, and the American Constitution.

As for the people, our Militia Resolution will be funding firearms safety and training for our county’s citizens, the ROTC and the public school systems – as well as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. These preparations are done to prepare our citizens to be able to become de facto militiamen if need be.

Constitution of Virginia

Article I. Bill of Rights
Section 13. Militia; standing armies; military subordinate to civil power

“That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

This is incredible news coming from Virginia, and is likely a move that anti-gun lawmakers and politicians did not expect. While the coming days will likely be difficult for defenders of the Second Amendment in Virginia, it’s reassuring to know there are still staunch supporters willing to stand up the tyrannical actions of anti-gunners in the government. Multiple attorneys are on board, as well as a professor of U.S. government and history.

TIME

The Secret World of Extreme Militias

On the Web and in militia groups, antigovernment extremism is on the rebound. A special investigation

By Barton Gellman Thursday, Sept. 30, 2010

Ty Cacek for TIMEODF militiamen Frank Delollis, right, signals for a patrol party to turn around while searching the Old Roseville Prison property in Roseville, Ohio for enemy combatants during the Ohio Defense Force’s annual FTX on Aug. 21, 2010.

Camouflaged and silent, the assault team inched toward a walled stone compound for more than five hours, belly-crawling the last 200 yards. The target was an old state prison in eastern Ohio, and every handpicked member of Red Team 2 knew what was at stake: The year is 2014, and a new breed of neo-Islamic terrorism is rampant in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio… The current White House Administration is pro-Muslim and has ordered a stand-down against Islamic groups. The mission: Destroy the terrorist command post — or die trying. The fighters must go in “sterile”—without name tags or other identifying insignia—as a deniable covert force. “Anyone who is caught or captured cannot expect extraction,” the briefing officer said.

At nightfall the raiders launched their attack. Short, sharp bursts from their M-16s cut down the perimeter guards. Once past the rear gate, the raiders fanned out and emptied clip after clip in a barrage of diversionary fire. As defenders rushed to repel the small team, the main assault force struck from the opposite flank. Red Team 1 burst through a chain-link fence, enveloping the defense in lethal cross fire. The shooting was over in minutes. Thick grenade smoke bloomed over the command post. The defenders were routed, headquarters ablaze.

This August weekend of grueling mock combat, which left some of the men prostrate and bloody-booted, capped a yearlong training regimen of the Ohio Defense Force, a private militia that claims 300 active members statewide. The fighters shot blanks, the better to learn to maneuver in squads, but they buy live ammunition in bulk. Their training—no game, they stress—expends thousands of rounds a year from a bring-your-own armory of deer rifles, assault weapons and, when the owner turns up, a belt-fed M-60 machine gun. The militia trains for ambushes, sniper missions, close-quarters battle and other infantry staples.

What distinguishes groups like this one from a shooting club or re-enactment society is the prospect of actual bloodshed, which many Ohio Defense Force members see as real. Their unit seal depicts a man with a musket and tricorn hat, over the motto “Today’s Minutemen.” The symbol invites a question, Who are today’s redcoats? On that point, the group takes no official position, but many of those interviewed over two days of recent training in and around the abandoned Roseville State Prison near Zanesville voiced grim suspicions about President Obama and the federal government in general.

“I don’t know who the redcoats are,” says Brian Vandersall, 37, who designed the exercise and tried to tamp down talk of politics among the men. “It could be U.N. troops. It could be federal troops. It could be Blackwater, which was used in Katrina. It could be Mexican troops who are crossing the border.”

Or it could be, as it was for this year’s exercise, an Islamic army marauding unchecked because a hypothetical pro-Muslim President has ordered U.S. forces to leave them alone. But as the drill played out, the designated opponents bore little resemblance to terrorists. The scenario described them as a platoon-size unit, in uniform, with “military-grade hardware, communications, encryption capability and vehicle support.” The militia was training for combat against the spitting image of a tactical force from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), FBI or National Guard. “Whoever they are,” Vandersall says, “we have to be ready.”

As militias go, the Ohio Defense Force is on the moderate side. Scores of armed antigovernment groups, some of them far more radical, have formed or been revived during the Obama years, according to law-enforcement agencies and outside watchdogs. A six-month TIME investigation reveals that recruiting, planning, training and explicit calls for a shooting war are on the rise, as are criminal investigations by the FBI and state authorities. Readier for bloodshed than at any time since at least the confrontations in the 1990s in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the radical right has raised the threat level against the President and other government targets. With violence already up on a modest scale, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and state agencies point to two main dangers of a mass-casualty attack: that a group of armed radicals will strike out in perceived self-defense, or that a lone wolf, trained and indoctrinated for war, will grow tired of waiting. Even the most outspoken militia commanders worry about the latter scenario. Kevin Terrell, a self-described colonel who founded a group of “freedom fighters” in Kentucky and predicts war with “the jackbooted thugs” of Washington within a year, says he has to fend off hotheads who call him a “keyboard commando.” Some are ejected from his group, he says, and others are willing to wait a little longer. “You have to have the right fuel-air mixture, the piston has to be in the right position, the spark has to be perfectly timed,” he says. “The day will come—sooner than later.”

Twisted Patriots
Within a complex web of ideologies, most of today’s armed radicals are linked by self-described Patriot beliefs, which emphasize resistance to tyranny by force of arms and reject the idea that elections can fix what ails the country. Among the most common convictions is that the Second Amendment—the right to keep and bear arms—is the Constitution’s cornerstone, because only a well-armed populace can enforce its rights. Any form of gun regulation, therefore, is a sure sign of intent to crush other freedoms. The federal government is often said in militia circles to have made wholesale seizures of power, at times by subterfuge. A leading grievance holds that the 16th Amendment, which authorizes the federal income tax, was ratified through fraud.

In a reversal of casting, the armed antigovernment movement describes itself as heir to the founders. As they see it, the union that the founders created is now a foreign tyrant. “It’s like waking up behind enemy lines,” says Terrell. He says he smelled a setup when the FBI arrested nine members of Michigan’s Hutaree militia in March and charged them with plotting to kill police. (Their trial is set to begin in February.) Terrell and other leaders put their forces on alert, anticipating a roundup. “There was a lot of citizens out there in the bushes, locked and loaded,” he says. “It’s only due to miracles I do not understand that civil war did not break out right there.”

Some groups, though not many overtly, embrace the white-supremacist legacy of the Posse Comitatus, which invented the modern militia movement in the 1970s. Some are fueled by a violent stream of millennial Christianity. Some believe Washington is a secondary foe, the agent of a dystopian new world order.

A small but growing number of these extremist groups, according to the FBI, ATF and state investigators, are subjects of active criminal investigations. They include militias and other promoters of armed confrontation with government, among them “common-law jurors,” who try to make their own arrests and convene their own trials, and “sovereign citizens,” who respond with lethal force to routine encounters with the law. In April, for example, Navy veteran Walter Fitzpatrick, acting on behalf of a group called American Grand Jury, barged into a Tennessee courthouse and tried to arrest the real grand-jury foreman on the grounds that he refused to indict Obama for treason. In May, Georgia militia member Darren Huff was arrested by Tennessee state troopers after telling them that he and other armed men intended to “take over the Monroe County courthouse,” free Fitzpatrick and “conduct arrests” of other officials, according to Huff’s indictment and his own account in an interview posted online. Investigators are keeping a wary eye on a related trend, which has yet to progress beyond words, in which law officers and military service members vow to refuse or resist orders they deem unconstitutional. About a dozen county sheriffs and several candidates for sheriff in the midterm elections have threatened to arrest federal agents in their jurisdictions.

Group distinctions are seldom clear because of overlapping memberships and alliances. The Ohio exercise, for example, included a delegation from the 17th Special Operations Group led by Colonel Dick Wolf, a former Army drill sergeant who previously took a unit to join Arizona militia leader Chris Simcox in armed patrols along the Mexican border. Wolf travels around the country to train other groups in such skills as knife fighting and convoy operations. He does not ask about their philosophies. “That’s their business,” he says.

The Obama Factor
None of these movements are entirely new, but most were in sharp decline by the late 1990s. Their resurgence now is widely seen among government and academic experts as a reaction to the tectonic shifts in American politics that allowed a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a Muslim-born father to reach the White House.

Obama’s ascendancy unhinged the radical right, offering a unified target to competing camps of racial, nativist and religious animus. Even Patriots who had no truck with white supremacy found that they could amplify their antigovernment message by “constructing Obama as an alien, not of this country, insufficiently American,” according to Michael Waltman, an authority on hate speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Perennial features of extreme-right scare lore—including imagined schemes to declare martial law, abolish private ownership of guns and force dissidents into FEMA concentration camps—became more potent with Obama as the Commander in Chief.

Threats against Obama’s life brought him Secret Service protection in May 2007, by far the earliest on record for a presidential candidate. At least four alleged assassination plots between June and December—by militiamen in Pennsylvania, white supremacists in Denver, skinheads in Tennessee, and an active-duty Marine lance corporal at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune—led to arrests and criminal charges before Obama was even sworn in.

“We call it somewhat of a perfect storm,” says a high-ranking FBI official who declined to speak on the record because of the political sensitivities of the subject. With an economy in free fall and rising anger about illegal immigration, Obama became “a rallying point” for dormant extremists after the 2008 election who “weren’t willing to act before but now are susceptible to being recruited and radicalized.”

Theirs is not Tea Party anger, which aims at electoral change, even if it often speaks of war. In the world of armed extremists, war is not always a metaphor. Some of them speak with contempt about big talkers who “meet, eat and retreat.” History suggests that even the most ferocious, by and large, will never get around to walking the walk. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center observes that “there are huge numbers of people who say, ‘We’re going to have to go to war to defend the Constitution or defend the white race,’ but ‘That will be next week, boys.'”

And yet there are exceptions, and law-enforcement officials say domestic terrorists are equally the products of their movements. Those most inclined toward violence sometimes call themselves three percenters, a small vanguard that dares to match deeds to words. Brian Banning, who led local and interagency intelligence units that tracked radical-right-wing violence in Sacramento County, Calif., says, “The person who’s interested in violent revolution may be attracted to a racist group or to a militia or to the Tea Party because he’s antigovernment and so are they, but he’s looking on the fringe of the crowd for the people who want to take action.”

The Supremacist
One such man was James Von Brunn. On June 10, 2009, he pulled up to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, raised a .22-caliber rifle and shot security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns in the chest. Part of Von Brunn’s story is now well known, but police, FBI and Secret Service investigators held back a startling epilogue.

Von Brunn was an avowed white supremacist with a history of violence that reached back decades. He had spent six years in prison after an attempt to take hostages at the Federal Reserve in 1981. After finding only disappointment in organized groups, Von Brunn retreated to his website and railed against passive comrades. “The American Right-wing with few exceptions… does NOTHING BUT TALK,” he wrote. At 88 and hospitalized with a gunshot wound he suffered at the museum, Von Brunn did not loom large in the public eye as a figure of menace. He was profiled as a shrunken old man, broke and friendless, who ended another man’s life in an empty act of despair. He died seven months later in prison before he could be tried.

What authorities did not disclose was how close the country had come to a seismic political event. Von Brunn, authoritative sources say, had another target in mind: White House senior adviser David Axelrod, a man at the center of Obama’s circle. The President was too hard to reach, in Von Brunn’s view, but that was of no consequence. “Obama was created by Jews,” he wrote. “Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do.”

The episode sent a jolt through the FBI and DHS. Von Brunn had demonstrated motive, means and intent to kill one of the President’s closest aides. The Secret Service assigned Axelrod a protection detail and took other, undisclosed steps to broaden its coverage. The DHS put out bulletins to state and local law-enforcement agencies on the tactics, warning signs and other lessons of the case. FBI agents need to understand, a senior supervisor says, that “it isn’t just the threat from Islamic extremists but also from homegrown or domestic terrorists” with antigovernment agendas—as the bureau had already seen in a small town in Maine.

The Dirty Bomber
The first thing Jeff Trafton noticed at 346 High Street was a “big swastika flag in the living room.” Upstairs, where a man lay dead in his bedroom, there were photographs of the victim posed in a black Gestapo trench coat. Any murder was unusual in Belfast, Maine, a town of 7,000 where Trafton is chief of police. This one kept getting stranger.

Who did it was not a mystery. Amber Cummings, then 31, shot her husband James, 29, to death, dropped the Colt .45 revolver and walked to a neighbor’s to dial 911. Evidence of her torment at the dead man’s hands during years of domestic abuse would later persuade a judge to spare her a prison sentence.

On the day of the shooting, Dec. 9, 2008, the story she told and an initial search of the house brought an FBI forensic team running. James Cummings appeared to have accumulated explosive ingredients and radioactive samples. He had filled out an application to join the National Socialist Movement and declared an ambition to kill the President-elect.

It was hard to tell how seriously to take that threat. On Jan. 19, 2009, WikiLeaks made public the FBI search inventory, which was distributed to security planners for Obama’s Inauguration. State police assured reporters, in response, that the Cummings home lab had posed no threat to public safety.

A much more sobering picture emerged from the dead man’s handwritten notes and printed records, some of which were recently made available to Time. Fresh interviews with principals in the case, together with the documents, depict a viciously angry and resourceful man who had procured most of the supplies for a crude radiological dispersal device and made some progress in sketching a workable design. In this he was far ahead of Jose Padilla, the accused al-Qaeda dirty-bomb plotter, and more advanced in his efforts than any previously known domestic threat involving a dirty bomb. Cummings spent many months winning the confidence of online suppliers, using a variety of cover stories, PayPal accounts and shipping addresses. He had a $2 million real estate inheritance and spent it freely on his plot.

“He was very clever,” says Amber Cummings, who until now had not spoken publicly about her late husband’s preparations. “There’s a small amount of radioactive material he can legally buy for research purposes. He’d call those companies, and he had various stories. He’d claim he was working as a professor.”

On Nov. 4, 2008—Election Day—Cummings placed his last two orders for uranium, at a total cost of $626.40, from United Nuclear Scientific Equipment & Supplies. The Michigan-based company, which declined to answer questions, offers uranium for sale online in “medium, high, super high and ultra high radiation” blends. In an ironic twist on customer service, United Nuclear wrote with regret to inform Cummings that one of the samples he ordered that day “was already purchased by Homeland Security for training purposes.” By way of apology, the company sent a larger quantity, in two chunks.A vendor in Colorado sold Cummings radioactive beryllium. Cummings produced a third radiation source at home. From standard references and technical manuals, Cummings learned how to extract thorium from commercially available tungsten electrodes by soaking them in a peroxide bath.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, all three metals—uranium, thorium and beryllium—are highly toxic when ingested and cause cancer if inhaled as fine airborne particles. Cummings had none of them in large quantity, and none had the high output of gamma rays that would make for the most dangerous kind of dirty bomb, but he was looking for more-lethal ingredients. A shopping list, under the heading “best for dirty bombs,” named three: cobalt-60, cesium-137 and strontium-90.

Cummings made his best progress on high explosives. He bought large quantities of 3% hydrogen peroxide, which is commonly sold in pharmacies, then concentrated it on his kitchen stove to 35%. With acids on hand, Cummings had a recipe and all the required ingredients for TATP, a hellishly energetic explosive favored by Middle Eastern suicide bombers.

In 2001, when shoe bomber Richard Reid came close to downing American Airlines Flight 63, he had several ounces of TATP in his hiking boots. Cummings had the ingredients to make many times that much, as well as aluminum powder, thermite, thermite igniter and other materials used to detonate the explosive and amplify its effects. Crude designs Cummings sketched on lined paper suggest that he had a lot to learn about efficient dispersal of radioactive particles. Even so, he was aware of the gaps in his knowledge. “His intentions were to construct a dirty bomb and take it to Washington to kill President Obama,” Amber Cummings says. “He was planning to hide it in the undercarriage of our motor home.” She says her husband had practiced crossing checkpoints with dangerous materials aboard, taking her and their daughter along for an image of innocence.Maine state police detective Michael McFadden, who participated in the investigation throughout, says he came to believe that James Cummings posed “a legitimate threat” of a major terrorist attack. “When you’re cooking thorium and uranium under your kitchen sink, when you have a couple million dollars sitting in the bank and you’re hell-bent on doing something, I think at that point you become someone we want to sit up and pay attention to,” he says. “If she didn’t do what she did, maybe we would know Mr. Cummings a lot better than we do right now.”

Who Would They Fight?
The abandoned state prison in Roseville, with its broken cinder-block walls and crumbling stairwells, made a suitably apocalyptic set for the Ohio militia’s August exercise. In the officers’ ready room, where back issues of Shotgun News and Soldier of Fortune lay on folding tables, an ancient graffito reading “KKK” had been painted over by one of Kenneth Goldsmith’s men. “The Klan in this area, they don’t like me at all,” Goldsmith says. “They came to me a few years ago to join forces… I told the guy, ‘You think you are from a superior race, is that it?’ He said yes. I said, ‘You don’t look so superior to me.'”

Members of militias around the country say, like Goldsmith, that they resent comparison with white supremacists like Cummings and Von Brunn. They complain of being tarred as members of hate groups by watchdogs at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. “I can’t tell you how much I enjoy being lumped in with sociopathic organizations like neo-Nazis, anti-abortion extremists and Holocaust-denial groups,” says Darren Wilburn, a private detective in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., who trains with a hard-core militia he preferred not to name. He cites his motto, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of anyone who threatens it,” as evidence that he is not looking for trouble as long as trouble keeps clear of him.The same two points—a defensive posture and ill will toward no one—were repeated with sincerity by many of Goldsmith’s men. There were layers of meaning beneath those words, which peeled back as the weekend progressed. The Ohio Defense Force charter declares two missions, which may sound the same to outside ears but mean very different things. One is to help state and local law enforcement upon request. The other is to “assist in the protection of local citizens in emergencies.”

An example of the first mission, the most recent one Goldsmith could think of, came after flooding struck Columbiana County six years ago. Chief Deputy Sheriff Allen Haueter says the militia helped direct traffic, leaving sheriff’s officers free to respond to emergencies. But Haueter did not authorize them—”Oh, no, no,” he says—to carry guns. They could as easily have done the job garbed as candy stripers.

Why, then, the paramilitary training that takes up nearly all the militia’s time? That question bothers Sheriff Matt Lutz of Muskingum County, where the militia is headquartered. “There is no correlation with them saying they’re there to help us in any way and them running around with assault rifles in the woods,” he says. “That’s what scares people. That just tells me they’re preparing for the worst.”

As indeed they are. The militia’s second mission, protecting local citizens, requires no invitation from the likes of the sheriff. An officer named Ken, who asked that his last name and hometown go unmentioned, says, “You can be a civilized human being and defend yourself without being a bad guy.” Against what? “Most likely it will start when the government tries to take our guns,” he says.

Craig Wright, 50, a consulting engineer from Mansfield, was one of the face-painted raiders who ambushed the Blue Team’s rear-perimeter guards. He learned something important, he says, when he went drinking with fellow members of force Red. “Some of these people are, quite honestly, quite scary,” he said. “They might not be well educated, they might not listen to Beethoven, but they can take care of themselves.”

And that is what Wright is looking for.

“We’re not planning to overthrow the government,” he said. “We’re planning for what could happen.” He proceeded to list, among other scenarios, a pandemic; economic collapse; hunger-driven big-city refugees; a biological, chemical or nuclear terrorist attack; an electromagnetic pulse from the sun that wrecks earthly machinery; invasion by Mexican drug cartels; and an eruption of ash from Yellowstone that “wipes out the breadbasket of the United States.” Any one of those would likely give Washington the excuse to declare martial law. If so, Wright and his brothers in arms would fight back. “Hopefully,” he said, “if they rule the cities, we’ll rule the countryside.”

This is a frame of mind that law-enforcement and counterterrorism officials have seen before, and it worries them. “There are a number of militias out there that we call almost defensive in nature, right?” a senior national-security official says. “So they train. They’re pulling in arms or pulling in weapons. They’re pulling in food. They’re preparing bunkers… They’re preparing for confrontation, but they will call it defensive.” The official paused as if to play out a scene in his mind’s eye. A well-equipped paramilitary force with “a perception of being confronted would strike out and strike out pretty hard,” he says. “For a small or even a medium-size law-enforcement agency—anybody, really—there would be some serious, serious issues.”

War on the Feds
On the sidelines of the disparate antigovernment movement, its philosophers are edging their followers closer to violence.

Bob Schulz, a leading exponent of the view that the IRS and much of the government it funds are operating illegally, has reached the brink of calling for war. The moment is significant because he is an influential voice among militia groups.

After more than a decade of conventional legal battles, Schulz and a network of allies organized by the We the People Foundation began filing hundreds of petitions for redress of grievances. Schulz had come to believe that the First Amendment’s petition clause required governors, legislatures and federal agencies to provide specific and satisfactory answers to accusations of wrongdoing. He filled government dockets with thousands of questions—one petition, for instance, asked the IRS to “admit or deny” 116 allegations of fraud in the 1913 debate that ratified the 16th Amendment. When his petitions went ignored and the Supreme Court declined to hear his case in 2007, he wrote a formal brief accusing the court of “committing treason to the Constitution.” The IRS, meanwhile, revoked his foundation’s tax-exempt status, alleging that he used it to promote an illegal “tax termination plan” and bringing tax-evasion charges against some of the people who followed Schulz’s advice.

Last year Schulz convened hundreds of delegates to a second Continental Congress in St. Charles, Ill., drafting Articles of Freedom with “instructions” that state and federal governments halt unlawful operations. Refusal to comply would be “an act of WAR,” the delegates wrote, and “the People and their Militias have the Right and Duty to repel it.” Several militia leaders are among the authors.

Then, in November and March, Schulz staged vigils at the White House in which he and some of his followers dressed in the mask of the menacing “V” from the film V for Vendetta. (In the movie’s final scene, the oppressive seat of government erupts in spectacular flames to the swelling strains of the 1812 Overture.) “If the First Amendment doesn’t work,” Schulz says, “the Second Amendment would.” He asks, “What does a free man do” when all other avenues are closed? “I am struggling with my conscience.”

Regardless of what conscience tells them, what chance do would-be armed rebels possibly have of prevailing against the armed might of the U.S.?

One answer comes from former Alabama militia leader Mike Vanderboegh, who wrote an essay that is among the most widely republished on antigovernment extremist sites today. In “What Good Is a Handgun Against an Army?” Vanderboegh says the tactical question is easy: Kill the enemy one soldier at a time. A patriot needs only a “cheap little pistol and the guts to use it,” he writes, to shoot a soldier in the head and take his rifle; with a friend, such a man will soon have “a truck full of arms and ammunition.” Vanderboegh is hardly a man of action himself, living these days on government disability checks. Even so, when he wrote a blog post in March urging followers to protest the health care bill by breaking windows at Democratic Party offices, they did so across the country.

Another answer comes from Richard Mack, who is holding constitutional seminars for county sheriffs from coast to coast, urging them to resist what he describes as federal tyranny by force. In his presentations, he shows movie clips to illustrate his point, like a scene from The Patriot in which Mel Gibson says, with fire in his eyes, “You will obey my command, or I will have you shot.”

Citing a long list of antecedents, beginning in 11th century England, Mack asserts that each of the nation’s county sheriffs is the supreme constitutional authority in his or her jurisdiction. A sheriff has the power to arrest and, if necessary, use lethal force against federal officers who come uninvited, and he may “call out the militia to support his efforts to keep the peace in the county.”

In his term as sheriff of Graham County, Ariz., Mack became famous for fighting and winning a legal battle against a provision of the Brady Bill that required him to enforce federal gun-control laws. He now says he wishes he had stayed out of court and simply drawn a line in the sand with the ATF. “I pray for the day when the first county sheriff has the guts to arrest the real enemy,” he says. Among the enemy, he numbers “America’s gestapo,” the IRS. Steve Kendley, a Lake County, Mont., deputy sheriff who is running for the top office there on Mack’s platform, says he expects federal agents to back off when threatened with arrest, but he is prepared for “a violent conflict” if “they are doing something I believe is unconstitutional.”

The nearest antecedent to Mack’s argument, and the only one known to scholars interviewed for this story, is the Blue Book of the Posse Comitatus, by white-supremacist militia leader Henry Lamont Beach, whose organization disintegrated after leading members were convicted of felonies or killed in 1983 during shoot-outs in Arkansas and North Dakota with federal marshals and uncooperative sheriffs. Beach used nearly identical language, saying the county is “the highest authority of government in our Republic” and the sheriff “the only legal law-enforcement office.” After Time e-mailed Mack extracts of Beach’s book, he replied that it “sounds exactly like Jefferson.”

Beware the Lone Wolf
Federal law-enforcement agencies want no part of a conversation about angry antigovernment extremists and refused in virtually every case to speak on the record. A few injudicious passages from career analysts at the DHS in an April 2009 report titled “Rightwing Extremism” — which could be misread to suggest danger from ordinary antigovernment opinions or military veterans in general—brought a ferocious backlash. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano distanced herself from the report and forbade further public discussion of the subject. Shortly afterward, the National Security Council staff canceled plans for a working-group meeting on the surge of violent threats against members of Congress.

Yet the months that followed brought fresh support for the study’s central finding, that rising “rightwing radicalization and recruitment” raised the risk that lone wolves would emerge from within the groups to commit “violent acts targeting government facilities, law-enforcement officers, banks and infrastructure sectors.”

Within 90 days came the Von Brunn shooting; a triple murder of police officers in Pittsburgh by white supremacist Richard Andrew Poplawski; and a double murder of sheriff’s deputies in Florida by a National Guardsman, Joshua Cartwright, who attributed his rage to Obama’s election.

The specter of the lone-wolf terrorist is what most worries law-enforcement officials, who return again and again to the searing example of Timothy McVeigh. Before destroying the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, McVeigh cycled through several white-supremacist groups and militias. In the end he decided to act alone, abetted by his friend Terry Nichols.

A top FBI counterterrorism official says the bureau’s “biggest concern” is “the individual who has done the training, has the capability but is disenchanted with the group’s action—or in many cases, inaction—and decides he’s going to act alone.” A high-ranking DHS official added that “it’s almost impossible to find that needle in a haystack,” even if the FBI has an informant in the group. James Cavanaugh, who recently retired from a senior post at the ATF and took part in some of the bloodiest confrontations with the radical right in the 1990s, says the creation of monsters in their midst is the greatest danger posed by organized groups.

The ceaseless talk of federal aggression—and regular training to repel it—”becomes a hysteria where you constantly, constantly practice and nothing happens,” he says. “Now most of them wouldn’t go out offensively, O.K.? But generally why they’re dangerous is that some people can’t stand that rhetoric and just wait for it to happen. And they go off the rails, á la McVeigh.”

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