Monthly Archives: August 2021

Best-selling author of White Rage Carol Anderson explores the anti-Black history of the Second Amendment. There is structural racism built into our Bill of Rights! The story of white Americans fear of black Americans with guns starts with the enslaved people who fought against the British and runs all the way to the killing of legal gun owner Philando Castile and beyond. Her new book is The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.

Transcript

Ana Marie Cox: Hi, Im Ana Marie Cox and welcome to With Friends Like These. I have a special treat this week, Ill be talking to Carol Anderson. Shes a professor at Emory University and a true friend of the pod. Shes the author of, among other things, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide, as well as One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy. Now shes going to talk to us about her new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Its a heavy topic for sure, but I think youll be surprised by how energetic and engaging she is. I am jealous of her students, for sure. So coming right up, Carol Anderson talking about The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.

Ana Marie Cox: Carol, welcome to the show.

Carol Anderson: Thank you so much for having me.

Ana Marie Cox: Yes, having you back. This is the second time weve had you. Its lovely to have you back.

Carol Anderson: Thank you. And it is great to be back.

Ana Marie Cox: So I guess my first question for you is a really broad one, but Im so curious, just how did you get interested in the subject of the Second Amendment and as it applies to anti-Blackness?

Carol Anderson: You know, my research, the bulk of my research has been about African-Americans rights, their civil rights, their human rights, their citizenship rights. And it was with the killing of Philando Castile in Minnesota, and here you had a Black man who had been pulled over by the police, and following NRA guidelines, he alerts the officer that he has a license to carry a weapon with him. And the police officer begins shooting and kills Philando Castile. So Castile wasnt brandishing the weapon, he wasnt threatening to use it, he was just alerting the officer that he had one so the officer wouldnt be surprised when Philando reached for his I.D. and saw the gun. And he was just gunned down in front of his fiance and in front of her small child. And the NRA went virtually silent on this. I mean, virtually silent. And the NRA doesnt do silence. But there they were, when a Black man is killed for simply having a license to carry a weapon: virtual silence. And journalists were asking, well, dont African-Americans have Second Amendment rights? And I went, oh, that is one I havent explored yet. And because in our current environment, the Second Amendment right is seen as foundational for citizenship, I thought, oh, this will be a really good one to explore. And it sent me hurtling all the way back to the 17th century.

Ana Marie Cox: You know, so when I looked at the title of your book and started reading it, this idea of the Second Amendment and how it intersects with anti-Blackness, I thought I kind of knew what you might mean because Im familiar with, for instance, you know, the gun laws in California having targeted the Black Panthers, right? And Im familiar with how any law that that interferes with any kind of right is always disproportionately applied to Black and brown people, so I have no question that the way the gun laws are applied here disproportionately affect Black and brown people. But what your book does is it shows how the creation of the Second Amendment, like from the beginning, from before there was a Second Amendment, was infused with anti-Blackness,

Carol Anderson: yes, and that was my aha moment in this work, in this research, was seeing how fearful white colonists were of Black people, and how they kept creating the architecture of control: the slave patrols that went into the slave cabins to look for weapons, to look for books, the militia that was there to quell massive slave revolt, to keep Black people from being able to fight for their freedom, and the gun laws, the laws that said that the enslaved as well as free Blacks could not have access to weapons. That kind of fear was just pulsing through. And what I also saw was, again, I go back to your previous question of how we think about the Second Amendment now, part of the way we think about it now is this kind of hallowed ground of the militia as being this incredible force that fought against the British and fought for American liberty and American democracy and wow! And

Ana Marie Cox: Spoiler alert for people that havent read the book: Militias, not so great after all, right?

Carol Anderson: Not so great after all, right. So you have this thing where George Washington is just beside himself because sometimes the militia would show up, sometimes they wouldnt. Sometimes theyd show up and then theyd stop fighting and then they take off running. I mean, its like, how can you have a battle plan when you cannot rely upon your forces to be where theyre supposed to be, where theyre supposed to be there. And so they could not rely upon the militia to take on a professional army.

Ana Marie Cox: Yeah. Lets, lets just stop for a second and want people to drill down on this a bit, because we do have this, especially I think, you know, white Americans have this idea, like, oh, the noble colonists who rebelled, so brave, you know, took up arms against the British and thats why were free today. Again, not so much. Right?

Carol Anderson: Not so much.

Ana Marie Cox: They had trouble rounding up the necessary numbers of white people they would need to fight the British. And because the idea of arming Black people was already, again, pre-Bill of Rights pre-revolution, but in the height of slavery, this ideayou said it in the same breath, books and guns: same kind of weapons in the eyes of white people. So the idea of having Black people help fight the Revolutionary War, which they needed to do, in order to have the numbers right? Was just resisted so heavily.

Carol Anderson: Oh, I mean, so in 1775, they banned Black people from joining the Continental Army, just banned them. But the British are kicking some USDA Grade A prime beef butt, and they cant get enough white men to enlist in the Continental Army. I mean, they are so far below their quota standards for what they need to take on the the most powerful fighting force out there. And so finally, two years later, they relent. So you start seeing in the north where theyre like, OK, fine, we are going to let enslaved men join the Continental Army and were going to promise them their freedom for being able to fight in this army, for being willing to fight in this army. And so you had Black men joining the Continental Army. So it was, it became a fully-integrated army. So you didnt have Black units and white units, you had a fully integrated army. And they fought. There were like 5,000 Black men in this army. And it was it was so incredible, so strong, so powerful, so effective that the British were like, dang, lets go, You know, but with a British accent, I cant do dang in a British accent.

Ana Marie Cox: I wont make you. Well just say, well, I liked it better in your accent, dang, lets just say dang.

Carol Anderson: Thatll work.

Ana Marie Cox: And thats especially interesting because the British were already abolitionists, right?

Carol Anderson: The British were moving toward abolitionism. And one of the things that you saw happening in this war that freaked the colonists out was that the Earl of Dunmore, who was the royal governor of Virginia, had promised the enslaved men who were on the plantations of the rebels, that come fight for the king and you will be free. And whew

Ana Marie Cox: So this raises a question, what would be the deciding factor there? I mean, because, it seems like if youre an enslaved person, the British are there, they havent enslaved you, right? And the Americans are there and you and yours would not be in the colonies were it not for them enslaving your family. So when you choose who to fight for [laughs] what, can you talk about that a little bit? Because theres a part of me that feels like how, why would they trust the Continental Army to let them have their freedom after they fought?

Carol Anderson: Its a great question. And really this was, you see how powerful the quest for freedom is among the enslaved, that theyre like, whos going to offer us our freedom? How do we get free? Because you had had a series of revolts, slave revolts prior to the Revolutionary War. You had had Black folks fleeing, going into Maroon territories where they were setting up their own communities that were in the swamplands to be almost impenetrable to whites so that they could be free. And so this pronouncement from the Earl of Dunmore was like music, music, and tens of thousands fled to the British. Fled to the British.

Ana Marie Cox: Yeah. And you cant blame them. I mean, like as much as the founding myth of America is a part of my upbringing as anyones, that seems like a pretty easy piece of calculus to make right? I mean . . .

Carol Anderson: And you had folks like Benjamin Franklin going: wow, theyre getting ready to turn our Negroes against us, right?

Ana Marie Cox: Well, who did what there, really? You know? Who turned them, I would say. [laughs]

Carol Anderson: And this, this kind of framing, because that framing also is what would continue to feed into the anti-Blackness. That Black people could not be trusted, that, you know, they got the slightest little wink and nod from the British and whew, they took off running in our hour of dire need. But during that war, what you saw was that the Black man who fought in the Continental Army, they had a lower AWOL rate than whites, and they fought for longer periods of time than white men. So but all of that got erased and it was just look at all those Black folks fleeing. See, you cant trust them. Theyre untrustworthy. Theyre no good. Theyre dangerous. Theyre fighting against us.

Ana Marie Cox: For one thing, I also want acknowledge the bravery of anyone whos going to choose to try to escape enslavement and go to fight for the British. Its not just they made a choice, oh, am I going, its not just, oh, am I going to stay here or go fight for them? Its an incredibly risky choice to say Im going to make a, take this incredible risk. Because its not just like who, oh, who am I going to fight for, you know, decision, decisions, Right? Its making this incredibly dangerous choice.

Carol Anderson: Absolutely. And the precarity of Black life is for me, one of the salient points that courses through this book, that Black folks would continue to fight for their freedom, would continue to fight for democracy, would continue to fight for justice. But in that fight, how they fought and what they fought for made them absolutely vulnerable to the violence that would rain down on them, the state violence that would rain down on them, the state-sanctioned violence that would rain down on them. The precarity of Black life courses through this book because it courses through American history.

Ana Marie Cox: So all those thousands of people of enslaved people who chose to join the British were taking, were already taking their lives into their own hands, as it were. I mean, finally being able to take their lives in our own hands rather than someone elses handsbut this incredibly dangerous choice to even try to escape to go fight for the British, what incredible bravery there. And then lets talk about the Black people that fought for the Continental Army, because, dammit, Carol, I dont know. I mean, I assume there have been some writings or narratives from these people where we get some kind of insight into the choices that they made.

Carol Anderson: You know, and, you know, its, there is again, a precariousness there, and so Im going to go to the point after the war where, so they were offered their freedom for fighting, but then you get a court case in Virginia in the early 1800s that says, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. If theyre Black, there is an automatic assumption that they are enslaved and they have to prove otherwise. So think about that, you have fought for this nations freedom and you still have to prove that you are not enslaved.

Ana Marie Cox: Well, thats the story that continues on through today. I mean . . . [laughs]

Carol Anderson: Yeah, you have to prove that you are not dangerous. You have to prove that you did not provoke the violence that came raining down on you. Because as Black is the default threat in American society, that is what has helped feed the sense of precarity, the reality of the precarity of Black life.

Ana Marie Cox: Im going to just try one more time with this choice, so the colonies could not have won the revolution without the Black people that fought on their side.

Carol Anderson: Absolutely.

Ana Marie Cox: And there was no reason for the people who made the choice to fight with the white soldiers of the Continental ArmyI mean, I feel like, what a, to call it a leap of faith is not enough, right? I just, like I said, Im curious, to decide to do that rather than either do nothing, you know, I mean, thats a choice. Its a valid choice because, again, every choice that a Black person made at this point in time is in precarity, right. Like theres no safe choice. To escape is dangerous, to stay is dangerous, to fight for the Continental Army is dangerous. So those that fought for the Continental Army, do we know why?

Carol Anderson: There was a sense that they could be free and there was a sense of the language of democracy, the language of a new kind of regime, that we hold these truths. There was this sense of like freedom, and freedom is a powerful elixir, and the sense that the people who had once held you in bondage, held you and your family in bondage, were saying, Lord, we need you now, God we need you now. We need you now so desperately that if you come fight for us, you will be free.

Ana Marie Cox: Carol, that gives me chills.

Carol Anderson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you think about it, that has been the promise and the fight for so long. If you fight in this army, for democracy, for American values, you will be free. And what we know from Black men in the military up for a long, long, long span of time, that was not true.

Ana Marie Cox: And thats the thing that, that, yeah, that gives me like I have a physical reaction to that, the bravery to take that chance, that expression of the highest ideals that the revolution was supposedly fought for, right?

Carol Anderson: Yes. Yes. And you know and, so one of the things that I continue to argue is that our freedom struggles have been on that aspirational plane of what the United States says it is. Not what it actually is, but what it says it is. And that is where you have seen these incredible freedom struggles of people fighting to gain access to those aspirations, to that democracy, to that freedom, to that equality, to that justice.

Ana Marie Cox: Its one of the arguments of the 1619 Project, that its people of color, Black people especially, that have kept America honest, as it were, or tried to, right?

Carol Anderson: Yes, yes. Yes. Whew.

Ana Marie Cox: Tried. And thats the other thing that breaks my heart to hear you articulate this powerful belief that these formerly enslaved people had. They bought our bullshitspeaking as a white person. Right? Like they believed what we were telling them, because on some level its true, right? And then had to have it, as you said, like right after the war, a court case finds youre a slave until you prove youre not. And then after the First World War, those veterans are lynched and tortured and subjugated. And then after the Second World War.

Carol Anderson: Yes!

Ana Marie Cox: And then after, and after Vietnam. I mean like, its just this, and we can argue about whether or not the Vietnam was necessarily fought to uphold American values, but this idea that we will, we willand lets get to the real point of your book, right, the Second Amendmentwe will take up arms. We, the people who were brought to this land in chattel slavery, we will take up the guns that you have given us, we will fight for you. We will not turn them on you [laughs] at least not right now, because youve told us we need to do this. And they keep coming, this, it keeps coming back to that. It keeps coming back to that.

Carol Anderson: Right. And the, we will take up arms, and so part of what we also see in this is the exigencies so that when whites need Black folks to bear arms, then there is a a loosening in that boundary so that during the Revolutionary War, and you couldnt get enough white men to enlist in the Continental Army and the British are like comingI mean, the British are comingand there is this sense, when you think about this, the Americans were traitors to the British crown and we know what happens to traitors. So this is the Oh, my God, we cant get enough white men, what are we going to do in this? And when you think about it as well. In South Carolina, when the British, when the war stiffened up north and the British said, were going to hit the soft underbelly, were going to go south. And so they send basically a doggone near armada of 8,000thousand troops to the south, they hit Georgia. Georgia collapsed like that. General Howe was like, I dont even know what happened. And then the British like, we just whipped your butt, thats what happened. And now theyre going to head toward South Carolina. Theyre coming to Charleston. And George Washington sends his emissary, John Lawrence, a prominent son of South Carolina, to beg the South Carolina government to arm the enslaved because South Carolina had deployed the vast bulk of its white men to control its enslaved population as part of the militia. Right?

Ana Marie Cox: Yes, the militia.

Carol Anderson: The militia. And there were only 750 available white men to take on this mass force coming from the British of 8,000 troops, only 750 white men available. And John Lawrence is like, you dont have enough white men to stop that, so youve got to arm the enslaved. And the response from the South Carolina government was, we are horrified that you would ask us to do something like that. This is alarming. This is appalling. And we dont even know if this is a nation worth fighting for.

Ana Marie Cox: So this gets to the question that that came to me fairly quickly as I was reading the first part of your book. With friends like that [laughs] do enslaved people need enemies? When I mean there is, Im just going, we know how the story ends, right? Eventually, the enslaved people are armed, eventually you and I are here speaking with American accents as fellow citizens of the United States. When I heard the vitriol expressed by Southern colonists still, right, about arming enslaved people, when I heard even, I mean, you know, northerners were not racist, right? I mean, they were still pretty racist.

Read the original here:
The Anti-Black History of the Second Amendment with Carol Anderson - Crooked

One of the significant concerns held by the founders of our country was that the government not be allowed to get too big. Our system of government is constructed in such a fashion the people are in charge, not the elected politicians. The politicians are elected to do the will of the people.

The Second Amendment provides that citizens can freely possess firearms. The rationale is for citizens to be able to protect themselves from a government that grows too large. The Second Amendment has been under assault for many years. As the government has grown larger and larger, the pressure in Congress to abolish the personal ownership of arms has been increasing year after year.

The primary argument being pushed to abolish the Second Amendment is focused on civilian gun violence in our streets. Is it a problem? Absolutely. Is removing firearms from the hands of citizens the answer? In my opinion, this is the absolute wrong approach to gun violence in the street. Disarming good, responsible gun owners only gives the upper hand to those bent on doing mayhem in our communities.

The focus on removing gun violence from the streets must be concentrated on the people committing the shootings.

In my 83 times riding this rock we call Earth around the sun, I will raise my right hand and swear, I have never witnessed a gun jumping off the table, running into the street and shooting someone.

A gun is manufactured from metal, plastic, wood and a few other inanimate materials. Some are engraved with beautiful designs. Others are plain and simple. However, to my knowledge, there isnt a firearm in the U.S.A. that has a brain of its own, has the ability to jump out of its place of storage, run out into the street, pick out a specific individual and shoot them.

The person holding the firearm is the cause of the shooting incident. It is the person who picks up this inanimate object, aims it, squeezes the trigger. And the firearm discharges as it was designed to do once it is in the hands of a person.

It is the person, not the firearm, that causes the shooting to occur.

Knives kill, cars kill, trucks kill, sledgehammers kill, bricks kill and any one of a hundred other inanimate objects used in a manner that results in death.

Where is the cry to eliminate any of these objects? There is none. Nada. Zip. Only deafening silence.

What we need to hear is support for reforming our seriously broken welfare system. Look at the statistics. Where is the highest majority of shooting crimes occurring? In the government housing projects and inner-city ghettos. Interestingly, all were created by government programs to, supposedly, lift people out of poverty. In reality, many of these programs were developed to assure a particular block of votes. It has worked.

Lets use some of the millions of dollars spent, or should I say wasted each day, to build an education system that works. A system that teaches the young how to survive in the adult business world. Pride in heritage must be emphasized. Law and order brought to the neighborhood. Respect for each other and for people they meet in the future.

Will this fix it overnight? Absolutely not. This project will require thousands of hours and extreme dedication from the people working it even to give it a glimmer of a chance to work. I suspect some will be surprised at the amount of help that will come from the gun owner community. Once it is established, this is not another congressional feel good project.

The gun is not at fault; blame for misuse lies with the person holding the firearm.

Train young people to respect firearms and use them properly. Train young people to respect each other. Train young people to take responsibility for their actions. Train young people on the proper way to use a checkbook. Train young people on how to succeed in a work environment. Train up each new generation to leave things in a better condition than they found them.

Will the shootings go away? After a time, yes. Once the young people learn to respect others and themselves, the guns will stay in the drawer and no longer jump out to shoot someone.

Jim Ross Lightfoot, a resident of White Oak, is a retired member of the U.S. House of Representatives who served Iowa from 1985 to 1997. He is an occasional contributor to the Saturday Forum.

Read more from the original source:
Lightfoot: People, not guns, are the problem | Forum | news-journal.com - Longview News-Journal

The Texas Council on Family Violence is educating judges, prosecutors and law enforcement on the cruciality of keeping firearms out of criminals' hands.

SAN ANTONIO A slew of new laws passed by Texas politicians will become effective next Wednesday, including the controversial permitless carry bill.

The so-called "Constitutional Carry" law was praised by gun rights groups and Gov. Greg Abbott as an extension of American freedoms.

Abbott stressed Texas needs to stand outas a Second Amendment sanctuary state, free of federal government intervention. Law enforcement groups and gun-control organizations, however, have expressed concern about the bills passage.

As a mom of a 17-year-old, of course Im concerned about her safety," said Linda Magid, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action in San Antonio. "Im concerned about my safety and Im concerned about the safety of our community."

Moms Demand Action volunteers plan on educating local business owners this weekend about legal ways to prevent people with guns from entering, whether or not they have a license to carry.

It involves signage citing Texas penal code 30.05.

Were asking businesses to allow that 11-by-17 space and put a sign up to keep people (who) maybe arent allowed to have that firearm, legally not allowed to have that firearm or just have no training at all to carry a weapon into a store or restaurant, Magid said.

The law allows people 21 years of age and older to carry a handgun in public without training, a background check or a permit.

The bill also includes enhanced criminal penalties for domestic violence offenders found with a gun.

The only way thats actually going to achieve meaningful survivor and public safety is if were actually implementing those prohibitions, said Krista Del Gallo, who works as the policy manager at the Texas Council on Family Violence.

When an abuser has access to a firearm, the risk of their intimate partner being killed is increased by 500%, Del Gallo said.

The organization is ramping up efforts to educate judges, prosecutors and law enforcement on the importance of keeping guns out of the hands of domestic violence perpetrators.

And were going to continue to talk about this and encourage and elevate the creation of the firearm disposition protocols at the community level because thats the only thing thats actually going to achieve safety and implementation of laws that have already been on the books, Del Gallo said.

Meanwhile, gun store owners are preparing for an influx of gun sales when the law becomes effective on Sept. 1.

Read more:
Domestic violence and gun control groups concerned over permitless carry law going into effect Sept. 1 - KENS5.com

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On a dry, bright afternoon in late June, members of the Bedford Militia lined up on a grassy lot on the property of Bryan Buchanan Auto Auction, right off the county highway in Montvale, Virginia. The group of about a few dozen stood in formation still as water, a US flag on one side and the squads guidon bearer holding up the militias flag on the other, the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. All were dressed in military fatigues and about half had a sidearm strapped to their hip. Bob Good, a Republican serving his first term in the US House representing the region, was on stage getting fired up, discussing his efforts on Capitol Hill to defend the Constitution, by which he meant the Second Amendment.

Good warned the audience that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party would not rest until they took away every gun in the country and forced critical race theorythe latest Republican boogeymaninto every classroom. The only thing preventing this leftist fever dream from becoming reality was the militia and their supporters, proud patriots and constitutional conservatives who are doing their part to help strengthen our nation and to fight for the things that we believe in, he said to rapturous applause.

Good had been invited to speak by the Bedford Militia for its second annual musterthe military term for an assembly of troops for inspection. And perhaps, in a different context, his speech might have sounded like a rallying cry before a big battle. But here in Montvale, there was no sign of a fight. There was a coffee stand and a barbecue truck stationed next to the stage. Local artisans set up tents to sell homemade jewelry and other crafts. Under one tent, militia members and other attendees of the muster could spin a giant wheel for a chance to win prizes donated by local businesses. If it hadnt been for the abundance of military uniforms and guns, youd have thought you just walked into a small county fair. Come on down to the paramilitary muster and win free passes for mini golf.

Loosely affiliated groups of armed militias are nothing new to the American landscape, but by the count of the Anti-Defamation League, the number of militias in the US quadrupled between 2007 and late 2009. While their ranks have thinned slightly in the past two years, according to a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, another joint report from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and MilitiaWatch, a nonprofit that tracks political violence, explains how these groups have ramped up their activity. At first, they came together to protest state mask mandates and shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID-19, then to square off against Black Lives Matter activists during a summer of intense protest, then to rally at ballot-counting centers on behalf of Donald Trumps Big Lie, and then, finally, to storm the US Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the results of the election.

Amid the rise of far-right extremist groups nationwide, Virginia is the only state where local governments are legitimizing their regional militias. In Bedford County and its neighboring Campbell County the local governments are trying to rebrand their militias from extremist paramilitary groups operating on the fringe of society into an official arm of the stateone with a more family-friendly image of protecting neighbors rather than bombing government buildings. Its sad at this point that the militia is a scary term, because historically its not a scary term, Jonathan Falls, the commander of the Bedford Militia, told his troops at the muster. Historically its a very honorable thing to do in your community, and so part of our mission is to change the definition of the militia back to what its original, historical meaning was.

In May 2020, the Bedford County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution officially recognizing the militia; Campbell County had passed an identical resolution a couple months prior. Legally, it means nothing, Mary McCord, the executive director of Georgetown Laws Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, says of the resolution. Under Virginia state law, only the governor has the authority to call forth militias. But, McCord warns, the resolution gives the militia a veneer of sanctioned credibility, the consequences of which can be severe.

Thats the vibe I got when I attended the Bedford Militias muster in June, at which Good was far from the only local politician to speak and praise the militia. Three members of the Bedford County Board of Supervisors, along with a Virginia state delegate, spoke and lauded the efforts of the militia members, citing some of the work theyve done in the community, which has included cleaning up debris after storms and leading a search-and-rescue effort for a missing hiker. Even the Bedford County sheriff, Mike Miller, who was originally scheduled to make an appearance, sent a note of appreciation to the militia that was read on stage.

The state of Virginia has a very clear anti-paramilitary lawall paramilitary activity that includes teaching, demonstrating, or assembling one or more people for the purpose of training with firearms is explicitly prohibitedbut laws are only as strong as a local law enforcements appetite for enforcing them. In a county like Bedford, what incentive does the locally elected sheriff have to enforce such laws when he knows that enough people in his community support the militia? You just might as well resign now because youre not going to get reelected, McCord says.

But when I visited Bedford County, I was less interested in what life was like for members of the militia and their supporters. Not everyone in the area is on board with the paramilitary organization, and people who have publicly opposed the militias formation and official recognition say that theyve been targeted, harassed, and doxxed by militia members and their supporters. And though Bedford and Campbell Counties are overwhelmingly white, the people of color who live in the area, which includes the neighboring city of Lynchburg, have felt targeted by government-sanctioned groups of mostly white people carrying guns in public.

Despite the positive image that the Bedford Militia wants to project, the truth is that they are a group of armed civilians whose mission is combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency along with providing community security. Determining what exactly that means and when and where its necessary for an armed group of civilians without any kind of public oversight to get involved is, at best, controversial. At worst, its what led to much of the violence that took place last summer at protests in the wake of George Floyds murder. Just as many other militias took to the streets opposite Black Lives Matter protests, so did the Bedford Militia, in an armed standoff that led to a riot in Lynchburg that the community is still reeling from.

Joshua Carr loves to tell stories. The 21-year-old acting major at the University of Lynchburg is a self-proclaimed history buff, especially when it comes to Black history and his hometown of Lynchburg. Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois used to literally come here on weekends, he tells me excitedly on a sunny spring afternoon in early April. The literati would travel to this city of 80,000 in the southern part of the state to see Anne Spencer, a Harlem Renaissance poeteven though she lived in Lynchburg (where she founded the local chapter of the NAACP in 1918) and only wrote letters to her compatriots in New York. Carr gets animated as he darts across his small but cozy apartment in the citys downtown, pointing from his window to different parts of town where Spencer and her friends would hang out.

Carrs love of these figures inspired him to get involved with his local Black Lives Matter chapter in 2019, a role that became even more urgent during the uprising last year following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It wasnt long after Carr started organizing with Black Lives Matter Lynchburg that he had a violent confrontation with the nearby militias that still haunts him. When I ask Carr what happened on May 31, 2020, he turns off the theatrics and looks at me solemnly. I almost died last year because of that shit, he says, quiet and sober.

It started a couple days after Floyds murder, when the Twitter account for Fifth and Federal Station, a whiskey bar and barbecue restaurant in downtown Lynchburg, traded racist jokes with Jerry Falwell Jr., the disgraced former president of Liberty University. Local breweries and distilleries stopped supplying booze to Fifth and Federal, whose owner, Josh Read, initially refused to apologize. That was a smack in our face, Carr says about the tweet. Fifth and Federal is situated in a part of town that has a large Black population, not far from the street where Carr grew up. We give you money. We help you.

On Sunday, four days later, protesters convened outside of the restaurant, which sits on the northwest corner of a traffic circle in downtown Lynchburg, across the street from a Family Dollar, where Carr works part-time as an assistant store manager. By all accounts the daytime protests were peaceful. Hundreds of people marched through downtown until they reached the restaurant. But as it grew dark, the situation turned tense. Police presence was sparse. Instead, armed members of both the Bedford and the Campbell militias posted up in and around the restaurant. Just days earlier, the Bedford Board of Supervisors had voted 52 in favor of their militia resolution. At one point, Read, the restaurants owner, came out to address the protesters: We got guns, he warned. While the militias may have only been from nearby counties, they viewed it as their mission to defend the restaurant from an unruly mob of Black Lives Matter protesters, under orders from their county government. They even claimed that the local police had called for their help to control the situation, though police told local press that they had not contacted the militia for backup.

By the time Carr got to the protest, shortly after 9 p.m., the militia was already there. He immediately spotted the snipers. One man was on top of the restaurant, with an AR-15style rifle pointed toward the protesters. Across the street, at the Family Dollar, another sniper was posted on the roof, a rifle aimed toward the crowd. More police began to arrive as tensions grew. After a couple of hours, Carr says, all hell broke loose. The next thing you know, a shot fires out from the top of the goddamn building of the Family Dollar, he recalls. That sent the protesters scattering. Some ran away fearing for their life; others fought back, picking up rocks and other objects and throwing them at the restaurant and at the police, who started spraying chemical irritants to disperse the crowd.

One protester was arrested and sentenced to a month in jail after he was found guilty of participating in a riot, a misdemeanor charge. Another went before a city grand jury in April on charges that include throwing a water bottle. In June 2021, 24-year-old Edwin Kyle Demerly pleaded guilty to starting the Fifth and Federal riot by setting off fireworks, launching the peaceful demonstration into a violent frenzy. But in addressing the court during his sentencing, Demerly said the riot was aggravated by the militia members and their aggression against minority groups. No charges were ever brought against any of the armed militia members who attended the protest.

Carr says that, since the Fifth and Federal protest, neither he nor his other BLM Lynchburg organizers have had any further physical confrontations with militia members. But he says both the BLM Lynchburg and his personal social media accounts have since received harassment and racist messages from white locals whom he suspects have militia ties. To Carr, its troubling but not surprising; he and his fellow BLM organizers have had to deal with racial oppression their whole lives, and the threat of harassment from white militia members is almost expected. Its a Were white supremacists, we can do that bullshit kind of mentality, he says.

Falling Creek Park is something of a jewel in Bedfords crown. Situated in the center of the county, it was the first of four planned regional multipurpose parks meant to attract tourists to the rural area when it opened in 2009. Ten miles of serene, wooded hiking trails surround the rolling green hills of the park. There are several picnic areas, a couple playgrounds, a skate park, and even a 36-hole disc golf course. At the edge of the parks sprawling meadow sits a nursing home that offers residents an idyllic view of the manicured vistas. Its a park that really takes pains to offer something for everyone. And that includes the local militia.

On February 15, 2020, Wes Gardner and Daniel Abbott, then the self-proclaimed organizers of the Campbell and Bedford Militias, held a muster at Falling Creek Park. It was a sort of coming-out party for the nascent militia, which Gardner and Abbott had formed only a few weeks earlier, after attending a massive gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia. On January 20, tens of thousands of fellow gun advocates gathered in front of the state Capitol. The protest, which was organized by the extremist gun rights group the Virginia Citizens Defense League, was directly responsible for kickstarting the states budding militia revival. Philip Van Cleave, the president of the VCDL, emceed the rally and introduced a slew of speakers who railed against the states newly elected Democratic majority. They warned protesters that the Democrats would soon be coming for their guns and that the crowd had better be prepared to defend their civil libertiesby any means necessary.

Gardner, a gunsmith who owns a gun shop in Campbell County, and Abbott, who serves in the Virginia National Guard, took the message to heart. Within weeks they put out word that they wanted to form a militia in both Bedford and Campbell. Their call to arms spread far and wide, with flyers posted at shops and restaurants throughout the county, and on popular Facebook pages that publicize local events and community news.

A roadside banner off a busy road in Bedford County promotes the militias second annual muster.

Donna StClair

The muster call said they were looking for all able-bodied residents of the Commonwealthwho are at least 16 years of age andnot more than 55 years of age. The purpose, the flyer said, was to preserve tranquility, peace, and civil order by beginning to organize volunteers in the event that the full organization of the militia is required to defend the rights and liberties of the citizens of Bedford County. They promised an inspection of arms with attendees encouraged to bring a variant of the AR-15 platform. Or any sort of rifle would do. The bright orange poster ended with a simple call. Sic Semper Tyrannis! More than 500 people showed up, eager to join the ranks.

Though Gardner and Abbott previously claimed to reporters that they were the leaders of the Bedford Militia, Falls, the militias current commanding officer, says thats not true and instead claims the groups first commanding officer, Kurt Feigel, was booted from that position after he told a reporter that the Second Amendment is not about hunting. Its not about self-defense. Its about shooting tyrants in the face. That sort of sentiment didnt jibe with the friendly public image that the Bedford Militias leadership was hoping to cultivate in the wake of all the bad press over the Fifth and Federal protest.

Many gun rights advocates, including Van Cleave, saw the budding militia movement as the next logical step after the rise of Second Amendment Sanctuary movement that took over the state a few months earlier, with counties across Virginia vowing not to enforce any gun control laws passed by the state legislature. When the two county militias were formed in unison, the organizing committee for both of them convinced the boards of supervisors in Bedford and Campbell counties to pass a resolution that would essentially give the local government control over the militias. It was a calculated move to shed the extremist reputation that local militias had gained throughout the 1990s and 2000s and instead rebrand them as community-oriented groups of do-gooders. To burnish their image, both militias have periodically popped up to volunteer, such as when the Campbell Militia helped a local food pantry move hundreds of pounds of canned food to a local church for storage last year.

That made it easy for the Bedford County Board of Supervisors to adopt the resolution to formally recognize the militia. At the vote, County chair John Sharp rationalized that a formal recognition would give the group a stronger legal standing in court should it ever find itself legally challenging an unconstitutional gun law. Though he emphasized that the local government otherwise shouldnt give the militia any sort of funding or endorsement, I think the arms-length approach is the better approach to avoid liability, he said at the hearing.

Bob Davis, another Bedford County supervisor who voted to recognize the militia, spoke in apocalyptic, biblical terms when I talked with him at the June muster. He told me that he sees this modern militia movement as a step toward the nations realignment, away from a more pluralistic society to what he views as its original ideals as a Christian nation. I think our nation is in a bad state right now because citizens fail to understand our founding principles, he said. Our laws came from God, from the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And along the way we got away from those principles that made us great. Davis knows what the militias are really about, canned-food drives or no.

If you ask members of the Bedford Militia why they think its important for the group to exist, theyllriff on the historical and constitutional context of militias. The Second Amendment, theyll say, guarantees freedom for a well regulated Militia with a right to bear arms. And theyll argue that the modern militia movement, which kicked off in the early 1990s, was never about anti-government extremism but rather a matter of true patriots slipping the yoke of the federal government and taking up the long twilight struggle for their constitutional freedomsjust as the Minutemen in the Revolutionary War did.

But the reality is that the modern militia movementwhich counted some 5 million members and sympathizers at its peak in the mid-1990shas always been an exercise in reimagining history. As Shane Bauer wrote for Mother Jones when he went undercover to report on a militia patrolling the southern border in 2016, While todays militia movement is made up of grassroots groups with the self-proclaimed mission of protecting the country against a tyrannical federal government, the militias enshrined in the Constitution were heavily regulated, top-down organizations.

The modern militia boom has its origins in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of Chicago, locates the rise of paramilitarism within the story of white supremacy in the postwar period. The story activists told about Vietnam and the response to the war on the right were major forces in uniting disparate strands of American white supremacism and in sustaining that unity, she writes in Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. As narrated by white power proponents, the Vietnam War was a story of constant danger, gore, and horror. It was also a story of soldiers betrayal by military and political leaders and of the trivialization of their sacrifice. This narrative facilitated intergroup alliances and increased paramilitarism within the movement, escalating violence.

Yet while the militias of the 1980s and 90s sprang from a sense of post-Vietnam malaise, they also drew inspiration from the widespread belief that the US had been bested by the guerrilla insurgency tactics of the Vietcong. This was a bitter sort of American triumphalism. A scruffy band of nimble-footed irregulars in the jungles of Southeast Asia had taken on an imperial superpower and wonjust like the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War. Myths were nesting within myths, as Garry Wills points out in his 1999 book, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government. The conclusions drawn from a panel of military and academic experts have been amply confirmed in later studies: The North Vietnamese finally won by purely conventional means, he writes.

The same was true of the Revolutionary War, in which the British army was not defeated by the insurgent tactics of a ragtag group of local farmers picking up guns but rather by the trained forces of the Continental Army. The militias of that era served a different purpose. They were crucial to what was called, in the eighteenth century, the internal police, Wills writes. At a time of great turmoil, the stay-at-home militias kept order. The British tried to foment slave rebellions. The militias kept a close watch on the slave population. The British also used Indian allies to raid American communities. The militias, which did have a tradition of active rangers on guard against Indians, repelled them.

As state militias professionalized and their ranks dwindled during the 19th centuryeventually turning into the National Guard in the early 20th centuryunofficial groups sprang up in their wake. Here we find the direct ancestors of modern militias. From the semi-underground Ku Klux Klan emerged a set of socially and politically blessed counterparts that operated to similar ends. Radical Reconstruction leaders in several Southern states organized Negro militias (actually often racially mixed) both to defend the interests of the freedmen and to patrol and control elections, Richard Hofstadter wrote in the 1970 book American Violence. Southern whites reacted to this challenge to their supremacy by forming, under various names, White Leagues, politico-military organizations which, unlike the Ku Klux Klan, operated quite openly, conducting military drills and laying public plans for resistance. The White Leagues were, in effect, the armed wing of the Democratic Party. Their members seem to have welcomed, and on some occasions probably planned, riots as occasions upon which they could strike back against the Negro militias.

Around the same time, the westward frontier of the country saw an explosion of extra-legal groups with a violent streak. Vigilante groups may be defined as organizations formed to create and enforce laws of their own making in the supposed absence of adequate law enforcement, Hofstrader writes. From there, the unofficial militias of the country turned to protecting the prerogatives of capital, with armed forces attacking strikers and union drives during the gilded age.

This is not the romantic history the reconstituted militias would like to evoke. Modern militias like the ones in Bedford and Campbell counties need to believe in what Wills calls an almost magic power of peoples war to prevail against the odds. Not just because it gives them an ill-fated blueprint for a fight against federal tyranny when the times comesand if you ask any militia member, that time will comebut because it also provides them with moral sanction for their crusade. Anti-government sedition is reimagined as the fullest expression of constitutional duty.

What Donna StClair remembers most about that first muster in 2020 was the terror and confusion at the nursing home adjacent to Falling Creek Park. They were so scared, she recalls. They had no idea who these people were and why they had guns. They didnt know if they should call the police or shelter in place.

StClair, 70, has lived in Bedford County all her life and prides herself on her patriotism. I believe, as a patriot, its my obligation that when I see my country doing something wronglike keeping kids in cagesto pipe up, she says. And so when she heard that people in her town were forming a militia, she decided she needed to do something.

On Facebook and other social media sites, StClair has become something of a pariah for her outspokenness against the militia and other far-right extremists in her community. Ever since she learned that a militia had formed in Bedford, shes been posting on various popular local Facebook groups about the dangers of similar extremist militias, such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters adherentstwo national militias that have a history of instigating violence.

It didnt take long for StClair, an Army veteran and longtime Democratic activist, to draw the attention and ire of Gardner from the Campbell Militia. StClair and a friend, who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the militia, took pictures of the Bedford Militias first muster and began to sound the alarm on Facebook and Twitter. A few weeks later, Gardner doxxed her on his Facebook page, posting pictures of her under the caption, Id like to thank our local crazy leftist Mrs StClaire [sic] for coming out to support our rally on Saturday. Next time you should stay and say hello. In the comments, people identified StClairs car and other identifying information about her. Months later, StClair, along with others who had spoken out against the Bedford Militia on social media, received mysterious letters in their mailboxhandwritten envelopes with no return address or stamp, filled with Trump 2020 propaganda. StClair is convinced it was a warning from the Bedford Militia, since the only other people she knows who received the letter were vocal militia opponents. It was a message saying, Hey, we know where you live.

Last October, StClair and her same friend attended another Bedford Militia rally. After a few hours of watching the speeches from afar, StClair and her friend began to head home. As they walked back to their car, a man chased them down to ask what they thought of the rally. It was finewhy? StClair asked. Well, what did you think of all this gun stuff and everything? the man replied. Well, I guess thats what makes America America, StClairs friend said as they inched to their car. StClair says the man then sprinted in front of them, twirling around with a knowing smile, and said, Gee, its nice to meet you, Donna.

In April, StClair found herself the target of a lawsuit. George Caylor, a financial adviser and host of a popular local tea partybranded talk radio show, sued StClair and two other individuals for allegedly posting defamatory comments on Facebook. Caylor boarded one of two buses that left from the Lynchburg area with more than 100 people to Washington, DC, on January 6 for the Stop the Steal rally on the Ellipse. On Facebook, StClair and the two other defendants called Caylor an insurrectionist and, in a private Facebook group, identified 41 people who were on the buses from Caylors public photos, calling for them to be arrested. Caylor maintains that neither he nor anyone that traveled with his group took part in the insurrection attempt at the US Capitol. The lawsuit claims that StClair also sent a message to MassMutual, where Caylor worked, that led to the company asking for his resignation. He is now demanding $1.7 million in damages from StClair and the two other defendants.

While Caylors public connection to the Bedford Militia is tenuous at best, news of the lawsuit reignited the harassment campaign against StClair from the militia. In a thread about the lawsuit on the gun discussion forum AR15.com, multiple anonymous users posted threats targeting StClair, with language she says is eerily similar to the threats she received from militia members. Would be a shame if her address and place of work (if she even works) were posted publicly somewhere, one user wrote. Another replied, It is if you google her name. Others posted vague references to knowing where StClair lives, along with intimations of violence: Donnas lawn looks like shit, wrote one user. For shame [if] anything happened to herI wouldnt lose any sleep over it, another user wrote.

The harassment doesnt stop with StClair. I spoke with multiple Bedford County and Lynchburg residents who told me about the harassment theyve received over their public comments disapproving of the militia. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because they worried about retaliation from militia members and their supporters. One person told me that, after speaking publicly at a Board of Supervisors meeting against the militia resolution, they received a flood of disparaging comments on their Facebook page and, similar to StClair, weeks later found Trump 2020 flyers in an unmarked, unstamped envelope in their mailbox. Other members of the Bedford Democratic committee said they received similar letters after publicly speaking out against the militia. In the days after the incident at Fifth and Federal, one woman, who is Black, posted on a Lynchburg community Facebook page about the threat of the militia and how their presence led to the violence that erupted that night. In response, a man who claimed to be a member of the Campbell Militia fired back at the woman, threatening to lay you down next to your best friend George Floyd. He then threatened to kill her son. Bring the boy too, he wrote, well lay him with you.

If it werent for the military fatigues and guns, a passerby might easily mistake the Bedford Militia for just another community service group. Its muster this summer was friendly and jovialkids ran around as their parents lounged in the sun and munched on tacos and barbecue. And everyone I talked to went to great lengths to praise the militia for its help in the community; one man said that he called on the militia to help move thousands of hay bales on his farm. But it wasnt hard to find the signs of the extremism lurking just below the surface. Some people in attendance werent just packing heat. They were carrying AR-15style assault weapons. The flyer for the mustermuch like the original gathering in 2020encouraged attendees to specifically bring unloaded semi-automatic weapons. And wedged between a jewelry tent and the barbecue station was a tent where the VCDL had a table filled with guns and literature about its organization and how people can get involved to help fight the Democrats tyranny.

Ever since the Democratic majority took hold in Virginia, the VCDL has been instrumental in organizing coalitions not just to block gun control legislation but to support proSecond Amendment measures like Bedfords militia resolution in counties and municipalities across the state. When a county like Bedford mulls recognizing the local militia, the VCDL, through its vast network of supporters, will flood county hearings, essentially crowding anyone who wants to voice their opposition, which is exactly what happened to one person in Lynchburg whom I spoke with on the condition of anonymity. So not only does this have a serious public safety impact, says McCord, the executive director of Georgetown Laws Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, but it thwarts First Amendment rights of those with disagreeing views.

In the aftermath of the insurrection attempt on January 6, the threat posed by these groups trying to legitimize themselves could not be graver, McCord says. Paramilitary groups like the Bedford and Campbell militias often like to hold training campsin violation of state lawto prepare their members for what to do in the event theyre called into a situation involving some sort of civil disorder. But the problem, according to McCord, is that these groups themselves are deciding where and when they should show up, whether it be at the Capitol on January 6 or when Black Lives Matter high school students march down the street in protest.

Falls, the Bedford Militia commander, says he hopes to shift that image. Were trying to get away from this preconceived notion of what a militia isa bunch of rednecks running around unorganized, undisciplined, he tells me, as if an organized and disciplined band of paramilitaries were a more reassuring sight. In any case it wasnt exactly an easy idea to take with a straight face as he spoke to me while militia members carrying AR-15style weapons walked by. Our message that were trying to get across is that were very much for the defense, were very much for the Second Amendment, but at the core were here to support the community, he adds.

Whatever the militias stated intent, experts like McCord and Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, are on high alert. Localities in Virginia and beyond are treating anti-government groups as if they were nothing more extreme than a local Kiwanis club. Pitcavage points to Landor and Lyon counties in Nevada, which recently became members of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a far-right group of local police officers that promotes the idea of local sheriffs as the sole authority to fight federal tyranny. The group is led by Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff and founding board member of the Oath Keepers. And so there you actually have counties joining an extremist group, which is even worse than whats happening in Virginia, he says.

These are signs of civic capitulation. The key problem here is that you have what are, by all accounts, extremist groups, getting an official recognition and imprimatur of an actual level of government, Pitcavage says. It fools people into thinking these are innocuous groups. That these groups somehow have legitimacy. When in fact they donttheyre not innocuous, they dont have legitimacy. And, in fact, they have a very dangerous set of ideas.

The rest is here:
Armed picnics and snipers at Family Dollar: Life in a town with a government-approved militia - Mother Jones