November 27, 2005
WITCH HUNTS WORK:
Militias' era all but over, analysts say (Brian MacQuarrie, April 19, 2005, Boston Globe)
Ten years after Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb that killed 168 people at the Oklahoma City federal building, the antigovernment militias that attracted intense police scrutiny after the bombing have all but disappeared, according to analysts who track the groups.''There really are no groups out there now doing paramilitary training," said Mark Potok, who monitors the militias for the Southern Poverty Law Center. From a high of 858 militias and other antigovernment groups in 1996, the number withered to 152 in 2004, Potok said.
The deaths of innocent civilians -- including 19 children -- in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building a decade ago today began the steep decline in the membership of grass-roots militias that had multiplied after deadly sieges by federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas, in 1993.
Analysts also said the decline was accelerated by the successful prosecution of militia members across the country on weapons and financial fraud charges in a federal crackdown, and the fact that none of the anticipated catastrophes from computer failures actually occurred on Jan. 1, 2000.
Old militiamen call it the Burning Time....
MORE:
'Repentant' Irving to plead guilty but must stay in jail (Ian Traynor, November 26, 2005, The Guardian)
David Irving, the discredited British historian of the Nazis, will spend Christmas and New Year in a Viennese jail after yesterday being refused bail and being remanded for four weeks pending trial for allegedly lying about the Holocaust.Posted by Orrin Judd at November 27, 2005 10:10 PMMr Irving is being held in Vienna after being arrested two weeks ago and has been charged with denying there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp in speeches he made in Austria 16 years ago.
At yesterday's custody hearing the magistrate dismissed Mr Irving's lawyer's request for bail on the grounds that he might disappear or that Britain would refuse to extradite him back to Austria for trial because the alleged crime is not an offence in the UK.
He is to be tried under a 1947 Austrian law banning Nazi revivalism and criminalising belittling or justifying the crimes of the Third Reich.
> "The deaths of innocent civilians -- including 19 children -- in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building a decade ago today began the steep decline in the membership of grass-roots militias"
Does anyone know of a case where deaths of innocent civilians led to a steep decline in far-left groups?
9-11
Posted by: oj at November 27, 2005 10:33 PMNot in the world. They've been out in force.
Posted by: Sandy P at November 27, 2005 11:19 PMPart of the decline is because no further gun control laws were enacted after the assault weapons ban, a law which many of the militia types thought was to be the first step in total gun confiscation.
Posted by: carter at November 27, 2005 11:26 PM9/11 was the killing blow for leftists worldwide. the stench of their passing is like roses to me.
Posted by: sun tzu at November 27, 2005 11:31 PMI think it was the election of a republican president. If there was a democrat still in like clinton, or worse, Kerry, it'd be mad max out there.
Posted by: Amos at November 27, 2005 11:52 PMStill to be explained, McVeigh's connection with the middle east.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at November 28, 2005 12:18 AMMaybe they were just social clubs that withered with the spread of the internet?
Posted by: RC at November 28, 2005 2:45 AMCarter is right about the demise of the gun-grabbing movement having removed some or the force behind the so-called militias. The story goes much further than just AWB repeal.
Actually there has been much gun-control activity, mostly at the state level, and in the opposite direction. There has been a right-to carry revolution, whose story is at http://www.nraila.org/Issue/FactSheet/Read.aspx?ID=18
We are all in the militia now, which, of course, had been the idea all along.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 28, 2005 3:28 AMRobert Schwartz:
Hard to explain, now that McVeigh's pushing up daisies.
I've seen conspiracy theories that claim that McVeigh was executed so swiftly to prevent him from ever telling about [insert favorite axe to grind].
Posted by: Michael Herdegen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 28, 2005 6:52 AM
I think it may have had something to do with the bad PR McVeigh gave the whole movement. Killing children will do that to a movement. You don't want your neighbors to think that you're a whacko who kills children.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 28, 2005 7:16 AMRobert:
Yes, something. Of course, prosecuting and persecuting the dumb schlubs has something to do with it too. We don't suffer the anti-social gladly.
Posted by: oj at November 28, 2005 7:28 AM