The Rise of Citizen Militias

[gwb-trading]

When mentioning "Citizen Militias" we are not talking about the alt-right gangs who go into cities seeking conflict and trouble with ANTIFA rioters... we are talking about citizens who are just sick and tired of their local neighborhood businesses and residences being destroyed by rioters.

In the 1960s and 1970s, even in the midst of riots and upheaval, citizens could count that the local police and national guard would hold the line and not stand-down allowing the violence to spread beyond the urban core of cities. In our current times in face of the "defund the police" movement people no longer believe that politicians have their back in minimizing riotous violence by supporting law enforcement.

At some point if the local police will not protect people then citizens will band together to start protecting themselves. Either they will hire private armed security or take up the task themselves to protect their families and property.

Dinesh D'Souza explains it well.... nobody is advocating this but if the violence continues it is the inevitable response.

Dinesh D'Souza says recent riots and political unrest could lead to 'rise of citizen militias around the country
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dinesh-dsouza-protests-riots-antifa-democrats

Conservative filmmaker and scholar Dinesh D'Souza said Sunday that recent rioting and political division within the U.S. could lead to the "rise of citizen militias," if societal tensions are not quickly de-escalated and diffused.

"The problem is that you respond [to rioting] through the lawful authorities, which is through the police; if things escalate beyond a certain point then you call in federal assistance. If things escalate beyond that point you call in the military," he told Fox News during a phone interview. "Local governments and state governors are calling down the cops and licensing their own private gangs. If the cops won't protect us, then you're going to see the rise of citizen militias around the country."

"I'm not advocating this," he added. "I'm predicting it. It is a natural and inevitable response to the militarization of one side."

D'Souza, whose new documentary film "Trump Card" is set to come out next month, claimed the escalation of division by the Democratic party has set off a chain reaction, which has caused cities to break down and inspired hardworking taxpayers to start new lives in more rural areas of the country.

"There's a great line from the movie Breaker Morant, 'When one side violates the rules of engagement you would expect the same type of conduct from the other,'" he explained. "This has to be stopped, otherwise you're going to see things just deteriorate. Cities will become uninhabitable. The cities are the center of western civilization. You have commerce and you have culture. The Democrats are making it such that it's difficult to have either one. That means technology, commerce, and culture will decamp and move out of the city, which means they'll become like ghost towns."

D'Souza also spoke about the difference between the Democratic party now, compared to 25 years ago, saying that they have launched an effort to rebrand themselves as far-left while making life difficult for center-right people of faith.

"No one would claim that the Republican party and Christianity are the same thing," D'Souza said. "So, an attempt to make a direct equation goes too far. The Republican Party stands for political things and Christianity stands for not only spiritual things but it also stands for things that go beyond life in this word. Christianity in a much larger canvass than let's say conservatism or the Republican Party."

(More at above url)

 

[Bugenhagen]

Unless they are recognised by the state they are gangs.

 

[gwb-trading]

Unless they are recognised by the state they are gangs.

Good luck with your assertion. Private armed security is licensed by government agencies and can be hired to patrol businesses and sub-divisions while actively displaying weapons as a deterrent.

Citizens are not limited to hiring private security, they are allowed to form armed groups for self protection in most states --- many state constitutions explicitly state this.

Only one state, Wyoming, explicitly does not allow militias to be formed. The regulations in other states all vary.

The best summary relating to private militias at public rallies can be found at the link directly below which describes the rules state by state. Note that the Georgetown Law school is opposed to private militias so their summary is framed in that context.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap...hibiting-Private-Armies-at-Public-Rallies.pdf

Keep in mind having a private militia attend a public rally as a "counter protest" or as a para-military organization on public property is very different than having a militia defend private property and lives.

Now for some background of the "insurrection theory" and the related court decision disallowing this...
"Many private militias are driven by the insurrection theory of the Second Amendment." However "'he U.S. Supreme Court has issued a qualified rejection of the insurrection theory. According to the Court in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951), "[W]hatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a 'right' to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change."'

Yet court decisions still allow militias to be formed for the purpose of protecting lives and property in times of unrest and disorder. This is very different than taking up arms against the government ("insurrection") or actively attending rallies to counter-protest armed on public property. The Second Amendment does protect an individual's right to bear arms for one's own self-protection and protection of their property, and by mutual association the property and lives of others who are part of the collective group ("your militia").

This being understood, any private "militia" must obey the law and exists in context of defending lives and property -- they cannot actively agitate, deliberately cause trouble, or break the law. Basically any "militia" is confined to the rules of the "castle law" of the state in terms of when they can take action. For example - if your private militia is standing on a business or residential property and someone is throwing a Molotov cocktail to burn down the building and potentially kill you --- then in most states you are free to defend yourself with a firearm.

https://law.jrank.org/pages/10067/Second-Amendment-PRIVATE-MILITIAS.html

Of course the entire area of private militias are complex -- there is (or should be) a clear line between being a legitimate neighborhood defense organization and being a domestic terror group. Complicating the issue is that the rules vary state by state leading to confusion regarding what is legally permissible and not-allowed.

 

[Bugenhagen]

Good luck with your assertion. Private armed security is licensed by government agencies and can be hired to patrol businesses and sub-divisions while actively displaying weapons as a deterrent.

Citizens are not limited to hiring private security, they are allowed to form armed groups for self protection in most states --- many state constitutions explicitly state this.

Only one state, Wyoming, explicitly does not allow militias to be formed. The regulations in other states all vary.

The best summary relating to private militias at public rallies can be found at the link directly below which describes the rules state by state. Note that the Georgetown Law school is opposed to private militias so their summary is framed in that context.
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap...hibiting-Private-Armies-at-Public-Rallies.pdf

Keep in mind having a private militia attend a public rally as a "counter protest" or as a para-military organization on public property is very different than having a militia defend private property and lives.

Now for some background of the "insurrection theory" and the related court decision disallowing this...
"Many private militias are driven by the insurrection theory of the Second Amendment." However "'he U.S. Supreme Court has issued a qualified rejection of the insurrection theory. According to the Court in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951), "[W]hatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a 'right' to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change."'

Yet court decisions still allow militias to be formed for the purpose of protecting lives and property in times of unrest and disorder. This is very different than taking up arms against the government ("insurrection") or actively attending rallies to counter-protest armed on public property. The Second Amendment does protect an individual's right to bear arms for one's own self-protection and protection of their property, and by mutual association the property and lives of others who are part of the collective group ("your militia").

This being understood, any private "militia" must obey the law and exists in context of defending lives and property -- they cannot actively agitate, deliberately cause trouble, or break the law. Basically any "militia" is confined to the rules of the "castle law" of the state in terms of when they can take action. For example - if your private militia is standing on a business or residential property and someone is throwing a Molotov cocktail to burn down the building and potentially kill you --- then in most states you are free to defend yourself with a firearm.

https://law.jrank.org/pages/10067/Second-Amendment-PRIVATE-MILITIAS.html

Of course the entire area of private militias are complex -- there is (or should be) a clear line between being a legitimate neighborhood defense organization and being a domestic terror group. Complicating the issue is that the rules vary state by state leading to confusion regarding what is legally permissible and not-allowed.

National Guard or SDF, if not sanctioned by a state, it is not a militia, just a gang or group or whatever. Calling it a "private militia" is a misnomer used if its some white guys, black, a gang.

You can say private police but they are not in fact, police. Call me picky but I spent several years with gangs trying to make themselves sound legit.

 

[smallfil]

People forget the Los Angeles riots of 1992 where businesses were looted and burned down, innocent people assaulted and hurt. This was on the heels of Rodney King who was beaten brutally, by cops. So many Koreans who had small businesses lost everything thru looting and burning that thugs engaged in. Koreans with businesses came out with guns to defend their businesses, guarding their businesses collectively, 24/7. Of course, even with the police and National Guard, businesses still got torched and robbed. With efforts by Democrats to defund the police everywhere, people with businesses will come out and defend their businesses. If not, they will lose everything. Ask the businesses in Kenosha, Wisconsin who lost everything they had in fires set to businesses in addition to massive looting.

 

[TreeFrogTrader]

It's always interesting the way a lefty state like Washington goes ape-shit over the mere suggestion that citizens can form mutual support organizations- and will blather at length about how you cannot let the citizenry take any action that looks like it encroaches on state/municipal action even if it is to defend their very lives.

Meanwhile, they allow/support marxists in carving out a seperate jurisdiction CHOP/CHAZ which declared forthrightly that their very purpose was to replace the local government. As opposed to many of the local citizenry efforts that are committed to upholding the rule of law and are merely acting in place of collapsed governments or governments that have willfully abdicated their constitutional duties under orders from their Bolshevik superiors.

It is more than I want to get into right now, but I will just say in general that even a state such as Wyoming that places limits on the formation of private militias does not escape the legal and constitutional requirement to define what constitutes a militia. Just their naming a group as such is not sufficient. Wyoming's language prohibits private militias from being formed as a military company or organization. And the language in general is to prevent private militias from parading and pretending to be under the authority of the state of Wyoming or as being quasi-governmental. Fine. Not a problem. Otherwise, citizens have second amendment rights and also the right to assembly. Talking and organizing with my neighbors is not a crime and is constitutionally protected. Neither is concluding as part of those discussions that people need to be upgrading their knowledge and possession regarding the use of firearms, and so on. Nor is it a crime to let people know who in their community is available to come and assist you if you are in trouble in any way or for you to communicate with them in such a time of need. If you try to go out on the offensive and threaten the local government or interfere with the rights of other citizens who are not threatening you, well, then that is another matter. Once that is not being suggested, other than but the bolshevik militia's such as in Seattle for example, but as we know, they are special and the law does not apply.

 

[gaussian]

National Guard or SDF, if not sanctioned by a state, it is not a militia, just a gang or group or whatever. Calling it a "private militia" is a misnomer used if its some white guys, black, a gang.

You can say private police but they are not in fact, police. Call me picky but I spent several years with gangs trying to make themselves sound legit.

https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2016/01/are-militias-legal.html

Militias are apparently legal but jurisdiction dependent and understandably the target of federal fishing expeditions. By your logic any non-uniformed armed group is a gang. Your understanding of the application of the term gang is weak and your assertion militia are white gangs and "gang" is only attributed to blacks is false prima facie. A counter-example is the infamous white supremacist gang The Aryan Brotherhood which the FBI themselves refers to as a "gang".

A key difference between a militia and a gang is that gangs are primarily focused on criminal enterprise while militias are focused on civil defense. This doesn't mean that a militia can't be a gang (for example several militias are involved in criminal enterprise in the northern states), but in general any group of armed, paramilitary civilians is considered a "militia" and not illegal in the strictest sense of the term. If you and your neighbors got together to form a neighborhood watch, and you lawfully carried firearms, you would be by definition a "militia". I think it stands without explicit evidence that armed neighborhood watches are legal.

Of course, the country's actual militia is the National Guard. But a militia does not need state sanctioning for validity.

If you want me to be completely hyperbolic - the definition you're using for militia implies the ability to dispense extrajudicial punishment without repercussion. E.g the national guard, police, and other paramilitary organizations sanctioned by the states.

 

[Bugenhagen]

https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2016/01/are-militias-legal.html

Militias are apparently legal but jurisdiction dependent and understandably the target of federal fishing expeditions. By your logic any non-uniformed armed group is a gang. Your understanding of the application of the term gang is weak and your assertion militia are white gangs and "gang" is only attributed to blacks is false prima facie. A counter-example is the infamous white supremacist gang The Aryan Brotherhood which the FBI themselves refers to as a "gang".

A key difference between a militia and a gang is that gangs are primarily focused on criminal enterprise while militias are focused on civil defense. This doesn't mean that a militia can't be a gang (for example several militias are involved in criminal enterprise in the northern states), but in general any group of armed, paramilitary civilians is considered a "militia" and not illegal in the strictest sense of the term. If you and your neighbors got together to form a neighborhood watch, and you lawfully carried firearms, you would be by definition a "militia". I think it stands without explicit evidence that armed neighborhood watches are legal.

Of course, the country's actual militia is the National Guard. But a militia does not need state sanctioning for validity.

If you want me to be completely hyperbolic - the definition you're using for militia implies the ability to dispense extrajudicial punishment without repercussion. E.g the national guard, police, and other paramilitary organizations sanctioned by the states.

Not my logic, no uniforms are required. But you have to be recognised by the state. I am sure you can find an exception but that won't hold true in 49 others.

Militia sounds like it carries constitutional weight so the gangs seek to include it.

MS-13 militia. See? Sounds better.

It's just propoganda and the state resists it. Chicago militias are the exact same thing as gangs.

No legal authority, its a gang, just a misnomered one. Simples.

 

[smallfil]

It's always interesting the way a lefty state like Washington goes ape-shit over the mere suggestion that citizens can form mutual support organizations- and will blather at length about how you cannot let the citizenry take any action that looks like it encroaches on state/municipal action even if it is to defend their very lives.

Meanwhile, they allow/support marxists in carving out a seperate jurisdiction CHOP/CHAZ which declared forthrightly that their very purpose was to replace the local government. As opposed to many of the local citizenry efforts that are committed to upholding the rule of law and are merely acting in place of collapsed governments or governments that have willfully abdicated their constitutional duties under orders from their Bolshevik superiors.

It is more than I want to get into right now, but I will just say in general that even a state such as Wyoming that places limits on the formation of private militias does not escape the legal and constitutional requirement to define what constitutes a militia. Just their naming a group as such is not sufficient. Wyoming's language prohibits private militias from being formed as a military company or organization. And the language in general is to prevent private militias from parading and pretending to be under the authority of the state of Wyoming or as being quasi-governmental. Fine. Not a problem. Otherwise, citizens have second amendment rights and also the right to assembly. Talking and organizing with my neighbors is not a crime and is constitutionally protected. Neither is concluding as part of those discussions that people need to be upgrading their knowledge and possession regarding the use of firearms, and so on. Nor is it a crime to let people know who in their community is available to come and assist you if you are in trouble in any way or for you to communicate with them in such a time of need. If you try to go out on the offensive and threaten the local government or interfere with the rights of other citizens who are not threatening you, well, then that is another matter. Once that is not being suggested, other than but the bolshevik militia's such as in Seattle for example, but as we know, they are special and the law does not apply.

Extreme liberal Socialists and Communists are trying to push and see how far they can get away with. If too many Americans do not care, they will carve out areas and impose their Socialist and Communist laws. "Like any virus, the followers of Socialism and Communism think it is the best thing since, sliced bread until, they find out the hard way that in a Socialist or Communist government, power resides in a handful of people." The rest are treated slaves of the state to do as they wish. Look at China with its labor camps forced to work for free, manufacturing items for export. If you are deemed a threat for criticizing the communist government, you stand arrest, torture, hard labor and imprisonment for a long time. Just look at Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, France. I included, France because Emmanuel Macron is already, brutalizing the French people suppressing demonstrations with an iron fist, using lethal riot weapons. If the US used the same weapons on Antifa and BLM in the US, riots would be a thing of the past. Yet, these same idiots want Socialism and Communism?

 

[gwb-trading]

Is America in the Early Stages of Armed Insurgency?
One of the world’s leading counterinsurgency experts is alarmed by what he sees.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/america-insurgency-chaos-trump-violence.html

David Kilcullen is one of the world’s leading authorities on insurgencies. For decades he has studied them. As an infantry soldier in the Australian army and an adviser to the U.S. Army, he’s fought against them. His latest scholarly work has focused on their role in urban conflicts.

So when Kilcullen says that America is in a state of “incipient insurgency,” it’s worth sitting up, taking notice, and trembling just a little.

The official definition of an insurgency is the “organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control” of an area. An “incipient insurgency” might be happening when “inchoate actions by a range of groups”—followed by organizing, training, acquisition of resources (including arms), and the buildup of public support—lead to “increasingly frequent” incidents of violence, reflecting “improved organization and forethought.”

Kilcullen argues that this is what we’ve been seeing the past few months in the waves of provocations and street violence that have blown through American cities since the May 25 police killing of George Floyd. By and large, the protesters haven’t been at fault. It’s been the extremists—left and right—who have tagged alongside the protests and counterprotests, exploiting the disorder.

In some cases, the violence has been committed by “individual idiots”—as Kilcullen calls them—such as, most notably, Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old self-appointed vigilante who, after reading radical right-wing ravings online, drove from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, and wound up shooting three people, killing two of them, in the wake of demonstrations over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

The incidence of violence is rising. According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (which usually monitors violence in war-torn countries), 20 violent groups—left and right—have taken part in more than 100 protests related to the George Floyd killing. In June, there were 17 counterdemonstrations led by right-wing militant groups in June, one of which sparked violence. In July, there were 160 counterdemonstrations, with violence in 18.

Armed militias are nothing new in the United States. A decade ago, Kilcullen counted about 380 right-wing groups and 50 left-wing ones, many of them armed. In the early 1990s, the faceoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidians, outside Waco, Texas, left 80 people dead—and inspired Timothy McVeigh and his gang of extremists to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, left-wing groups such as the Weather Underground set off bombs all over the country; police waged deadly shootouts with the Black Panthers in Oakland, California, and Chicago; and marchers for and against the Vietnam War—mainly students and hard-hat workers—clashed in violent street battles.

But except for the last set of clashes (which didn’t involve organized groups, much less insurgencies), those earlier incidents rarely corresponded with the divides between the nation’s political parties.This is one way in which the current conflicts are different—and, potentially, more dangerous.

Another difference and danger is the prevalence of cable TV networks and social media, which amplify and spread the shock waves. Incidents that in the past might have stayed local now quickly go viral, nationwide or worldwide, inspiring others to join in.

After Rittenhouse shot three people in Kenosha, right-wing militants touted him as a hero. FoxNews host Tucker Carlson hailed him for deciding that he had to “maintain order when no one else would.” Frequent Fox guest Ann Coulter said she wants Rittenhouse “as my president.”

Kilcullen also has observed, in the militias’ social media, a steady rise of “dehumanizing” rhetoric—the left calling the right “parasites,” the right calling the left (especially the left wing of Black Lives Matter) “rats.” The trend parallels, and intensifies, the mutual hostility between Democrats and Republicans in Congress and politics broadly.

Meanwhile, a powder keg is building. FBI background checks for gun sales hit 3.9 million in June—an all-time high. Many of them were for first-time gun buyers—by definition untrained, possibly rash in their actions. An estimated 20 million Americans carry a gun when they leave their homes. It takes just a few trigger-pullers to set off a conflagration; even in intense insurrections, such as the postwar rebellion in Iraq, only 2 percent of insurgents actually fired their weapons.

Kilcullen sees a pattern similar to the patterns that precipitated insurgencies in Colombia, Libya, and Iraq. The key factor is the rise of fear. He cites Stathis Kalyvas’ book The Logic of Violence in Civil War as observing that fear, not hate, drives the worst atrocities. “Every civil war and insurgency of the last 50 years has been driven by fear,” Kilcullen told me. Today’s politics and social tensions are dominated by three fears: fear of other social groups, fear that those other groups are encroaching on one’s territory, and fear that the state no longer has the ability to protect the people.

Things do not have to get worse. “Incipient insurgency” doesn’t mean “inevitable insurgency.” We are still in the very early phase of this rampage—a “pre-McVeigh moment,” as Kilcullen puts it. And the extent of disorder has been exaggerated, usually for political motives. When violence has occurred during protests, it has been confined to just a few blocks; it hasn’t spread throughout a city. Contrary to Trump and other Republican politicians, New York is not a “hellscape,” Portland is not “ablaze all the time,” and Chicago is not more dangerous than Afghanistan.

In other words, there is still time for political leaders—locally and nationally—to calm the storm, douse the flames, and stifle the violent provocateurs across the spectrum, while also addressing the underlying social, political, and racial issues that sparked the (legitimate) protests.

Unfortunately, President Donald Trump has no interest in calm. Instead, he is deliberately fanning the flames as part of a cynical election strategy. He has declined to criticize Rittenhouse, viewing his actions as self-defense. In general, he rails only against left-wing militants such as antifa activists—never against the right-wing ones, such as the Boogaloo Bois, Patriot Prayer, or Proud Boys. More than that, he has lumped antifa alongside the truly peaceful protesters of Black Lives Matter—and alongside the Democratic Party. His words encourage some police, in some cities, to take the same view. (In Kenosha, police were caught on camera tossing water bottles to armed right-wing militants, thanking them for coming out to help.)

Trump is also threatening to cut off federal aid to cities with Democratic mayors and rising crime rates, calling them “anarchist jurisdictions.” He has painted his opponent, Joe Biden, as a weak politician in “thrall” to leftist radicals—ignoring Biden’s long record as a left-centrist and his repeated denunciations of violence and looting, regardless of the cause.

Trump’s aim is to incite fear—fear of violence, disorder, change—and to paint himself as the bastion of law and order. It’s an odd tactic for an incumbent president, and it’s unclear whether the ploy is working. But, as Kilcullen and Kalyvas point out, he’s right about the fear’s potency. And the first violent incidents can spark a self-reinforcing cycle of violence, retaliation, and retaliation for that. “It doesn’t matter what the original grievance is,” Kilcullen says. “It becomes self-sustaining.”

The report by the Armed Conflict Location a& Event Data Project concludes:

In this hyper-polarized environment, state forces are taking a more heavy-handed approach to dissent, non-state actors are becoming more active and assertive, and counter-demonstrators are looking to resolve their political disputes in the street. Without significant mitigation efforts, these risks will continue to intensify in the lead-up to the vote, threatening to boil over in November if election results are delayed, inconclusive, or rejected as fraudulent.

In short, the authors write, “The United States is in crisis.” The upcoming election—how it plays out, as well as how it ends up—could determine how deeply into crisis the country continues to plunge.