Posted on Oct 12, 2017
3b2d18fe-aeb6-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html
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These unregulated "private militias", outside of the command and control of the state governor or the President, are a problem.
Though these individuals likely do not see themselves as domestic terrorists, many Americans see them that way.
As the lawsuit states: "government alone retains a monopoly on the organized use of force."
For those that do not want to follow the link, the text of this Washington Post article follows, titled: "Charlottesville officials join Va. lawsuit to bar activity by private military groups"
By Ann E. Marimow October 12 at 9:46 AM
Charlottesville officials voted Thursday to join a lawsuit intended to prevent a repeat of the violence at a white-nationalist rally in August by targeting the groups of “alt-right warriors” and heavily armed militiamen who showed up at the demonstration.
The lawsuit hangs on a rarely invoked provision of Virginia’s constitution that attorneys say bars private military groups and could be used throughout the country as officials from Boston to Berkeley look to avoid similar clashes at political protests.
“Charlottesville has been besieged repeatedly by these groups, and key organizers and leaders of the Unite the Right rally have pledged to return to Charlottesville as often as possible,” according to documents set to be filed Thursday in state court. The filings target white-nationalist leaders — including rally organizer Jason Kessler — and several private militias.
Without court intervention, the lawsuit says, “Charlottesville will be forced to relive the frightful spectacle of August 12: an invasion of roving paramilitary bands and unaccountable vigilante peacekeepers.”
The complaint lists 22 white-nationalist organizations, leaders and private militia groups as defendants, saying these “military forces transformed an idyllic college town into a virtual combat zone.” Many wore matching uniforms and used command structures to coordinate their actions.
The groups of men dressed in camouflage and carrying semiautomatic rifles at the August rally confused even Virginia’s public safety secretary, Brian Moran, who first assumed some were soldiers in the state’s National Guard, which had been called in for the first time in 28 years to help with a civil disturbance.
The lawsuit is the second filed Thursday in the aftermath of the deadly August rally that attracted hundreds of white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis from across the country to protest the planned removal of Confederate statues from city parks. Nineteen people were injured in clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters, and Heather Heyer, 32, was killed after a reported Nazi sympathizer allegedly drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians.
Charlottesville Council memberson Thursday signed onto a legal strategy developed by a new Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law School.
“Our complaint shows that there are legal tools available to ensure that the streets do not become battlefields for those who organize and engage in paramilitary activity,” said the institute’s senior litigator, Mary B. McCord, a longtime federal prosecutor who was most recently head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
Under Virginia law dating to 1776, the state constitution specifies that “in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” That means, according to the court filing, that the “government alone retains a monopoly on the organized use of force.”
The lawsuit tries to preempt likely arguments from defendants, saying it does not seek to restrict individual rights to gun ownership or free-speech rights to assemble and express political views.
“Whatever their stated intentions, these groups terrified local residents” and created confusion about who was in charge,the lawsuit asserts.
The lawsuit‘s reliance on provisions in the state constitution distinguishes it from the federal lawsuit filed earlier Thursday, which was brought by individuals seeking monetary damages and to stop named white supremacists and organizations from menacing behavior.
Laws similar to Virginia’s have been used throughout history in cases filed in Texas and North Carolina to shut down paramilitary activities by the Ku Klux Klan. The statutes on the books in most states make clear that only the government can control military organizations in a state.
After the August rally, University of Virginia historian Philip Zelikow thought of a Texas case he’d worked on in the 1980s that relied on state law banning “military companies” not authorized by the governor. In that case, a judge stopped the Ku Klux Klan from training paramilitary groups to harass Vietnamese American fisherman on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Zelikow called the Charlottesville case an important reminder of laws already on the books for decades “that are meant to keep our political protests and confrontations free from paramilitary intimidation and companies of men with guns.”
An article that Zelikov had written about the Texas case on the Lawfare site caught McCord’s attention in August. “If you say it’s okay for private military groups to mass carrying assault weapons at political confrontations, that’s a powder keg,” Zelikow said.
Among the defendants in the case invoking Virginia’s constitution is Christian Yingling, a leader of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, who has said that he and his troops “convoyed in” to Charlottesville to defend free speech and maintain civil order.
“Our mission was to help people exercise their First Amendment rights without being physically assaulted,” Yingling said in an earlier interview with The Washington Post.
Though these individuals likely do not see themselves as domestic terrorists, many Americans see them that way.
As the lawsuit states: "government alone retains a monopoly on the organized use of force."
For those that do not want to follow the link, the text of this Washington Post article follows, titled: "Charlottesville officials join Va. lawsuit to bar activity by private military groups"
By Ann E. Marimow October 12 at 9:46 AM
Charlottesville officials voted Thursday to join a lawsuit intended to prevent a repeat of the violence at a white-nationalist rally in August by targeting the groups of “alt-right warriors” and heavily armed militiamen who showed up at the demonstration.
The lawsuit hangs on a rarely invoked provision of Virginia’s constitution that attorneys say bars private military groups and could be used throughout the country as officials from Boston to Berkeley look to avoid similar clashes at political protests.
“Charlottesville has been besieged repeatedly by these groups, and key organizers and leaders of the Unite the Right rally have pledged to return to Charlottesville as often as possible,” according to documents set to be filed Thursday in state court. The filings target white-nationalist leaders — including rally organizer Jason Kessler — and several private militias.
Without court intervention, the lawsuit says, “Charlottesville will be forced to relive the frightful spectacle of August 12: an invasion of roving paramilitary bands and unaccountable vigilante peacekeepers.”
The complaint lists 22 white-nationalist organizations, leaders and private militia groups as defendants, saying these “military forces transformed an idyllic college town into a virtual combat zone.” Many wore matching uniforms and used command structures to coordinate their actions.
The groups of men dressed in camouflage and carrying semiautomatic rifles at the August rally confused even Virginia’s public safety secretary, Brian Moran, who first assumed some were soldiers in the state’s National Guard, which had been called in for the first time in 28 years to help with a civil disturbance.
The lawsuit is the second filed Thursday in the aftermath of the deadly August rally that attracted hundreds of white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis from across the country to protest the planned removal of Confederate statues from city parks. Nineteen people were injured in clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters, and Heather Heyer, 32, was killed after a reported Nazi sympathizer allegedly drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians.
Charlottesville Council memberson Thursday signed onto a legal strategy developed by a new Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law School.
“Our complaint shows that there are legal tools available to ensure that the streets do not become battlefields for those who organize and engage in paramilitary activity,” said the institute’s senior litigator, Mary B. McCord, a longtime federal prosecutor who was most recently head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
Under Virginia law dating to 1776, the state constitution specifies that “in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” That means, according to the court filing, that the “government alone retains a monopoly on the organized use of force.”
The lawsuit tries to preempt likely arguments from defendants, saying it does not seek to restrict individual rights to gun ownership or free-speech rights to assemble and express political views.
“Whatever their stated intentions, these groups terrified local residents” and created confusion about who was in charge,the lawsuit asserts.
The lawsuit‘s reliance on provisions in the state constitution distinguishes it from the federal lawsuit filed earlier Thursday, which was brought by individuals seeking monetary damages and to stop named white supremacists and organizations from menacing behavior.
Laws similar to Virginia’s have been used throughout history in cases filed in Texas and North Carolina to shut down paramilitary activities by the Ku Klux Klan. The statutes on the books in most states make clear that only the government can control military organizations in a state.
After the August rally, University of Virginia historian Philip Zelikow thought of a Texas case he’d worked on in the 1980s that relied on state law banning “military companies” not authorized by the governor. In that case, a judge stopped the Ku Klux Klan from training paramilitary groups to harass Vietnamese American fisherman on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Zelikow called the Charlottesville case an important reminder of laws already on the books for decades “that are meant to keep our political protests and confrontations free from paramilitary intimidation and companies of men with guns.”
An article that Zelikov had written about the Texas case on the Lawfare site caught McCord’s attention in August. “If you say it’s okay for private military groups to mass carrying assault weapons at political confrontations, that’s a powder keg,” Zelikow said.
Among the defendants in the case invoking Virginia’s constitution is Christian Yingling, a leader of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, who has said that he and his troops “convoyed in” to Charlottesville to defend free speech and maintain civil order.
“Our mission was to help people exercise their First Amendment rights without being physically assaulted,” Yingling said in an earlier interview with The Washington Post.
3b2d18fe-aeb6-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html
Posted from washingtonpost.com
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 9
Posted >1 y ago
I think there will be some issues with this. First off will be the definition of militia and then on private militias. Then there are actual State sanctioned militias. Next will be on the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms and then on rights of assembly.//// I may have missed it. If militias are such a threat then what is their recorded body count? Chicago just had its 500th murder of the year and no one is proposing legislation to do anything about that CF.
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LTC (Join to see)
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Update on my post: White Extremists have killed 77 people since 1995 according to a less than credible source. To compare look at Chicago data:
Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 517
Shot & Wounded: 2473
Total Shot: 2990
Total Homicides: 556
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/18/white_extremist_murders_killed_at_least_60_in_u_s_since_1995.html
Year to Date
Shot & Killed: 517
Shot & Wounded: 2473
Total Shot: 2990
Total Homicides: 556
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/18/white_extremist_murders_killed_at_least_60_in_u_s_since_1995.html
The Long List of Killings Committed by White Extremists Since the Oklahoma City Bombing
White supremacist James Fields Jr. appears to have intentionally run over Heather Heyer in Virginia on Aug. 12.
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LTC (Join to see)
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CPO James Rogerson - My bet is this is not a legal move but a political move to get the narrative out there and keep it in the current PR area. Democrats have amnesia over the fact that they are the history of the Klan. This is an attempt to wash the sins of time off their hands. I don't think it will have an effect. But then again the majority of folks today are educated in the public school system so who knows what they will buy. They all seem to enjoy an authoritarian leader that mandates certain action though.
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Posted >1 y ago
There is a clear difference between legal and illegal militias. If you and a few drinking buddies want to organize, practice shooting, and get supplies for disasters or government tyranny that makes you a legal militia.
But if you and a group get together to buy some ARs, file off the serial numbers to sell to some weird Russians with suitcases full of cash you might be breaking some laws.
Forming a group is not illegal. Forming a group around guns is not illegal. Those are called the 1st and 2nd Amendments. It is what you do as a group that may or not be legal.
But if you and a group get together to buy some ARs, file off the serial numbers to sell to some weird Russians with suitcases full of cash you might be breaking some laws.
Forming a group is not illegal. Forming a group around guns is not illegal. Those are called the 1st and 2nd Amendments. It is what you do as a group that may or not be legal.
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COL Korey Jackson
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SPC Casey Ashfield
An armed group, calling itself a militia, engaged in unlawful paramilitary activities and/or falsely assuming the duties of a peace officer or a law enforcement officer, in the state of Virginia, wearing uniforms that does not make themselves clearly distinguished from law enforcement personnel and National Guard members, outside of the command and control of the duly elected governor, is not a legal militia.
An armed group, calling itself a militia, engaged in unlawful paramilitary activities and/or falsely assuming the duties of a peace officer or a law enforcement officer, in the state of Virginia, wearing uniforms that does not make themselves clearly distinguished from law enforcement personnel and National Guard members, outside of the command and control of the duly elected governor, is not a legal militia.
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SPC Casey Ashfield
>1 y
Korean Americans formed militia style groups to defend their stores and homes during the 1992 LA riots. By all regard they did a better job enforcing peace than the CANG and the LAPD. Taking away all public abilities to arm and assemble over an isolated incident is a fundamental cornerstone of fascism.
Some militias are good. Some are bad. They are inherently neither good or evil. But I guess VA forgot that part.
Some militias are good. Some are bad. They are inherently neither good or evil. But I guess VA forgot that part.
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SSgt Christopher Brose
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SPC Casey Ashfield - Exactly! The Korean shop owners are my favorite example of a modern-day militia. They were well-regulated in that they were proficient with their firearms and they could function together, and their firearms and skills were certainly necessary for the security of their free state.
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Posted >1 y ago
Does this mean Antifaand BLM will also be labeled as terrorist?
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LTC (Join to see)
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Firearms Guide - Identification of Firearms Within the Purview of the National Firearms Act |...
This publication was prepared by the Firearms Technology Branch to help you in identifying weapons classified as firearms (including destructive devices) under Title 26. This may also be cited as the “National Firearms Act.” This guide acts as an aid in identifying types of firearms and destructive devices which must be registered with ATF under the national firearms act (title II of the gun control act of 1968).
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SFC Dave Beran
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But that is not Antifa. Just because they proclaim to be antifacist. I am talking the specific group. Hood wearing punks.
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SSG Robert Webster
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LTC (Join to see) - Thanks for the link, I am familiar with what is contained in the guide and also with their "Gun Control Act Definitions" section.
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