Sooner or later, I knew it was going to happen. The liberal media would wake up to the fact that the so-called militia ‘movement’ isn’t just a bunch of fat, old White guys eating some pizza, drinking some beer, and then romping around in the woods with their guns.
Yesterday, the Massachusetts State Police chased a bunch of heavily-armed men into a wooded area on I-95 about 10 miles north of Boston. The highway was closed down, the SWAT teams showed up, the negotiations went back and forth, and the insurrectionists finally gave up. No shots were fired, nobody was hurt.
The group turned out to be members of something called the Rise of the Moors, an outfit in Rhode Island which has, of course, the usual website and professes to be part of the Nation of Moorish-Americans who do not believe that they are citizens of the United States. Hence, they do no feel obligated to obey American laws, or pay American taxes, or submit to American sovereignty in any other way.
Why were a bunch of these self-proclaimed separatists sitting on the shoulder of I-95 in Wakefield, MA filling up one of the vehicles in their caravan with gas? Because they were on their way to Maine for ‘training,’ whatever that means. Give me a break.
What did the liberal media do as soon as this story made the news? They called up the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, both organizations immediately characterizing the Rise of the Moors as an ‘extremist movement.’ I mean, what else is the ADL going to say? The last movement that the SPLC or the ADL investigated that wasn’t an ‘extremist movement’ was the Boy Scouts, and even then, they weren’t completely sure.
If there’s one legacy which has come out of the Trump years and refuses to go away, it’s the idea that all you have to do is let some idiots walk around with assault rifles who say they are protecting us from the ‘tyranny’ of the Deep State, and you have proof that the militia movement is here to stay and getting worse every day. One of the really accomplished liberal journalists, Lucian Truscott (who should know better) just put up a piece on Salon in which he claims that the GOP has shifted so far to the Right that the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers are the party’s base.
And what do these groups all share in common? They all call themselves ‘militias’ and they all love to strut around showing off their guns. Don’t forget – they have military commanders like General Roger Stone getting them in line for the next charge up San Juan – oops! – I mean Capitol Hill.
I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of what happened on January 6th. But I really think that our man Joe is correct when he says that if you want to take on the American government, you’d better have something more than an AR-15, like maybe an F-15, okay?
The day after he made that comment some idiots on a Facebook gun group to which I belong began telling each other that they knew some guy who owned his own F-15. When I mentioned that a 30-foor, cigar-shaped aluminum cylinder with wings but without avionics or weapons is a replica and not a real warplane, I was denounced as just another anti-gun liberal who’s on the payroll of the Deep State. Which, since I conduct lethal-force certifications for federal law-enforcement agencies, happens to be true.
I guess because I sold maybe 100 or more assault rifles in my gun shop between 2001 and 2015, I just can’t find myself getting all worked up about the ‘threat’ posed by either the home-grown protectors of the Constitution indicted after January 6th, or by the followers of Sharia law arrested in Wakefield yesterday.
I’ve actually attended a couple of militia ‘training’ sessions out in the woods. The pizza was still warm, and the beer was cold.
Jul 04, 2021 @ 10:08:13
“I was denounced as just another anti-gun liberal”
Well, you are. Biden’s talk of needing an F-15 isn’t original. Confiscation nation has been playing this card for years. “ThE gOvErNmEnT hAs NuKeS” quoth Eric Swalwell D-CA (because of course). I don’t own guns because I fear government tyranny. I own guns because I fear government incompetence. The government is infested by the feckless and the malicious on both sides. They have proven that they cannot be trusted to protect us.
Jul 04, 2021 @ 12:45:39
Mike writes that these groups all share in common that they call themselves ‘militias.’ As I’ve looked the Rise of the Moors websites as well as related website of the Moorish American group, I never found any reference to them calling themselves or identifying with a ‘militia’ group. Sounds as if Mike equates the Rise of Moors/Moorish American group to be the same in meaning.
What I have found is that the authorities recovered two AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, two pistols, a bolt-action rifle, a shotgun and a short-barrel rifle. A total of 7 firearms and eleven men were taken into custody.
The Supreme Court of Georgia in Nunn v. State (1846) explained, “The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree . . . .”
So just because you have 11 men, carrying 7 firearms they are now members of a militia.
Jul 06, 2021 @ 06:45:08
These guys were on their way up to Maine to ‘practice.’ Want to tell me what kind of practicing they were going to do? Maybe just practicing shooting a squirrel out of a tree with their AR-15? Believe it or not, the State Police stopped because these guys had a 3-car caravan and they were all pulled over by the side of the road. So the Staties pulled over to see if they needed help. Whereupon the cops saw a couple of rifles in the back seat of one of the cars. When they asked the guys what was going on, the entire bunch ran into the woods, some of them taking guns with them. You think this was just a bunch of guys driving around for the weekend and exercising their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights?’ Gimme a break.
Jul 06, 2021 @ 11:18:13
Very good Mike. The next time you conduct your lethal-force certification to your federal law-enforcement friends, you may want to ask them about profiling.
You are so quick to label these 11 people as members of a militia.
You’re good Mike, real good, but maybe your general characteristics of these people is just…simply wrong.
Jul 06, 2021 @ 11:26:17
RIGHTS not ‘rights.’ This isn’t Europe.
Jul 04, 2021 @ 15:24:51
It doesn’t sound like these gentlemen were abiding by the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 aka “The Peaceable Journey Law”. Stuff should have been unloaded and secured in a lockbox or something. Oh, and gas up before you enter Massachussetts. Just to avoid giving law enforcement the idea that you are not just passing through without stopping.
Jul 04, 2021 @ 15:45:41
from the USCCA site: “Fed Interstate 18 USC § 926A — Vehicle carry unloaded and secured. These sections of the code were intended to protect the passage of travelers (who can legally possess a firearm) to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where he or she may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he or she may lawfully possess and carry such firearm. The firearm must be unloaded, and neither the firearm nor any ammunition can be readily accessible from the passenger compartment. In the case of a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver’s compartment, the firearm or ammunition shall be contained in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.”