NCJ Number
158517
Date Published
1995
Length
37 pages
Annotation
Based on a survey by the Anti-Defamation League 6 weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing, this report presents a State-by- State summary of militia activity, supplementing the information contained in an October 1994 report, "Armed and Dangerous."
Abstract
The report identifies militia activity in 40 States. In California, more than 30 militias are currently operating, apparently having benefited from the publicity the movement has received in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Other States in which militia activity has increased are Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Arizona. In a few States activity has declined since the bombing in Ohio, Indiana, and Colorado, for example. For some groups, such as the Northwest Oregon Regional Militia, a factor in their decline has been the belief that the government, having engineered the Oklahoma City bombing, is now poised to take extreme measures to destroy the militia movement. Since the militias are mainly located in rural and small-town communities, the burden of monitoring them falls largely to State and local police. The survey found that many of these agencies, due in large measure to inadequate investigative resources, have not monitored militias. The most ominous aspect of the militias' program is the conviction that an impending armed conflict with the Federal Government requires paramilitary training and the stockpiling of weapons in preparation for the conflict. According to the militias' conspiracy view, the Federal authorities are enacting gun control legislation to make it impossible for the people to resist the imposition of a tyrannical regime or a "one-world" dictatorship.