To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement

Notes

notes The URLs given in these notes were valid at the time that this research was conducted . However, some of these Web pages may no longer be available. Introduction 1. Norm Olson, founder of the Michigan Militia, interview by the author, Alanson, MI, November 3, 1998, 7; and Olson, “Is the Citizen Militia Lawful?” http://mmc.cns.net/text/lawfulmilitia.txt (accessed November 1, 1996). 2. Bill Utterback, cofounder, Texas Constitutional Militia, interview by the author, San Antonio, TX, January 6, 2006, 5–6; Charles Morrison Jr., and Tom Plummer, members of the Central Ohio Unorganized Militia, interview by the author, Columbus, OH, October 25, 1998, 4; and Norm Olson, interview, 9. An examination of the texts demonstrates that Olson’s manual is the foundation of the manuals of the Texas Constitutional Militia, the Missouri 51st Militia, the Pennsylvania Citizens Militia, and the California Militia. See Norm Olson, “Establishing a Militia in Michigan” (Revision 1, June 28, 1994), Michigan Militia Multi-Information Archive (hereafter MMC Archive); “Formation of a Texas Constitutional Militia,” in Kenneth S. Stern, Militias, a Growing Danger: An American Jewish Committee Background Report (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1995), app. 28; “Missouri 51st Militia By-Laws,” http://www.tfs .net/~sbarnett/bylaws.htm (accessed August 4, 1997); Pennsylvania Citizens Militia Manual, version 1.1, March 6, 1995, http://www.users.fast.net/~klh/pa.pa triot/manual.html (accessed November 1, 1996); and Stephen L. King, California Militia Manual, posted to misc.activism.militia (accessed January 24, 1996). 3. John Trochman, Enemies Foreign and Domestic (1995), provided courtesy of John Trochman; Militia of Montana, Information and Networking Manual, provided courtesy of Donald Cohen, director, Detroit Regional Of‹ce of the Anti-Defamation League, 7; Charter of the Unorganized Militia of the Ohio Republic , Ohio Unorganized Militia information booklet, provided courtesy of Tom Plummer; and Jonathan Karl, The Right to Bear Arms: The Rise of America’s New Militias (New York: Harper, 1995), 67–74. 4. The Michigan Militia’s claim of a membership approaching ten thousand in early 1995 is plausible in light of news coverage of county militia meetings drawing between one hundred and two hundred attendees each. The Indiana Citizens Volunteer Militia may have enrolled ‹ve thousand members in the same period. If these claims are accurate, then a national total in the range of one hundred thousand is a distinct possibility. 5. On the white supremacist roots of the movement, see Southern Poverty Law Center, False Patriots: The Threat of Antigovernment Extremists (Montgomery : SPLC, 1997); Anti-Defamation League, Armed and Dangerous: Militias Take Aim at the Federal Government (New York: ADL, 1994); Morris Dees with James Corcoran, Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat (New York: HarperCollins , 1996); and Kenneth S. Stern, A Force upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). On militias as a millenarian phenomenon, see Richard Abanes, American Militias: Rebellion, Racism, and Religion (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996); Michael Barkun,“Religion, Militias, and Oklahoma City: The Mind of Conspiratorialists ,” Terrorism and Political Violence 8 (1996): 50–64; and Martin Durham, “Preparing for Armageddon: Citizen Militias, the Patriot Movement, and the Oklahoma City Bombing,” Terrorism and Political Violence 8 (1996): 65–79. For comparisons to earlier populist vigilantes see Catherine McNichol Stock, Rural Radicals: Righteous Rage in the American Grain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); and Joel Dyer, Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City Is Only the Beginning (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998). 6. For the narrative of 1995, see Southern Poverty Law Center, False Patriots; Anti-Defamation League, Armed and Dangerous; Abanes, American Militias; Dees, Gathering Storm; Thomas Halpern and Brian Levin, The Limits of Dissent: The Constitutional Status of Armed Civilian Militias (Northampton, MA: Alethia Press, 1996); and Stern, Force upon the Plain. 7. Steven M. Chermak, Searching for a Demon: The Media Construction of notes to pages 2–8 288 the Militia Movement (Boston: Northeastern Press, 2002). Chermak ‹nds that militia “experts” provided commentary in over 65 percent of all news stories on the militia movement. 8. Leo P. Ribuffo, The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), esp. chap. 5. 9. The narrative of 1995 was part of a larger lobbying campaign conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other civil rights organizations. Their objective was to...