Economy, Obama administration help fuel Kentucky militias' resurgence
By Chris Kenning
[email protected] November 1, 2009
Bob Resnick didn't believe all the right-wing militia conspiracy theories — the FEMA internment camps or the government coffins stockpiled for the day the feds declare martial law and round up dissenters. But they made him wonder.
Then America's economy tumbled and the nation elected Barack Obama, and the resulting chatter about socialist incursion, rampant gun control and a government takeover of health care made him fear where the nation was heading.
So the 43-year-old disabled Louisvillian searched the Internet for local militia groups that seemed to echo his misgivings.
“The way everything's going nowadays, if the economy tanks and they do declare martial law, and they do like California with all the riots and stuff, I'd like to know I've got a group I can be with so I'm not on my own,” he said.
After nearly a decade of decline, militia groups are seeing a resurgence in Kentucky and across the nation, fueled partly — according to militia leaders and watchdog groups — by the bad economy and Obama's election.
Resnick found his niche just a few weeks after beginning his search.
On a rainy October afternoon, he drove into a gun range in a secluded Bullitt County hollow to join 15 fatigue-clad members of the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters, a Louisville-based militia that was holding a training session on assault weapons.
Surrounded by the pop of gunshots, Resnick squinted into the sight of his black semiautomatic rifle, blasting a hole in one of two U.N.-blue helmets the group was using for target practice — a symbol of global tyranny to militia groups — and left as the group's newest member.
Membership booming
The Freedom Fighters have seen their membership triple since summer to more than 100, according to Kevin Terrell, a Louisville-area contractor who leads the group with the rank of colonel.
Leaders of the Kentucky Militia, a confederation of six militias based around the state from Bowling Green to Eastern Kentucky, also report membership increases, although they won't give specific numbers.
Mark Potok, an analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks extremist groups and recently issued a report on the resurgence of militias, said the center estimates that at least 50 patriot or militia groups have formed nationwide since 2008, bringing the total to more than 200.
In April, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies that right-wing extremist groups may be exploiting worries spawned by the economic downturn and Obama's election as recruiting tools, noting that as anti-government sentiment builds, militia movements were “likely to grow in strength.”
While it hasn't reached the level of the mid-90s, the rise in training events, Internet rhetoric, new groups and gun sales “is a worrying trend,” Potok said. “It's worth remembering the militia movement of 1990s produced a lot of criminal violence, although we haven't seen much of that yet.”
Kentucky State Police Capt. John Bradley, who heads the department's Intelligence Branch, said his unit monitors published reports, newsletters and the Internet but thus far, “we haven't seen a spike in criminal activity” related to militias.
Dan Couch, commander of the Bowling Green-based Public Defenders militia, said the state's militias aren't a threat, but just law-abiding citizens trying to protect a way of life they view as under threat.
His group doesn't allow illegal weapons, he said, and recently kicked out a member who wanted to “experiment with explosives.”
“We're not here to overthrow, but to protect and defend our rights by any means necessary,” he said.
And members of the Freedom Fighters — roofers, mechanics, salesmen, truck drivers, factory workers and emergency medical technicians who are mostly middle-aged men with a survivalist bent — deny that they are extremist, racist or violent.
“We're not out to start a war,” Terrell said, although he added, “it may be forced on us if lines are crossed,” through “gun confiscations, forced inoculations and the rounding up of dissidents.”
Preparing to face attack
On a recent night in rural Shelby County, pickups began pulling off a darkened county road and into a gravel lot behind Olive Branch United Methodist Church. About 30 Freedom Fighters, some armed, and most in tiger-striped fatigues and combat boots, gathered in the church basement.
Militia member J.D. Fleming taught the group how to use a gas mask to ward off riot agents and gave tips on surviving a chemical or biological attack. The former Marine then explained that firing 50-caliber armor-piercing rounds into engine blocks of armored vehicles can disable them.
Later, member Pat Dalton, who said he is a contractor and consultant, explained how he has started a “block watch on steroids” in his St. Matthews neighborhood by recruiting several “like-minded people” to stockpile batteries and food in their homes and be ready to fight in case of a government takeover.
“People who called us wacko nuts 15 years ago are coming and asking questions,” he said.
It was just the latest event for a group that in recent months has recruited at an anti-tax tea party, attended an “open carry” church service in Valley Station, created pamphlets and a DVD dubbed “The Rise of the Resistance” and held paramilitary training and survival seminars.
Members come from Jefferson and surrounding counties, including as far north as Seymour, Ind. Almost all are white, many are Christian, a handful are women, and they range from late teens to mid-50s. They're grouped into squads, with a military hierarchy, and nearly all own weapons, usually semiautomatic rifles, which are legal.
The Freedom Fighters are the latest incarnation of the Kentucky Riflemen Militia, formed in 1994 — a time when the militia movement was reaching its peak, after the 1993 siege of Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, and the 11-day Ruby Ridge, Idaho, standoff in 1992 with fugitive Randy Weaver.
But within a decade, the movement had declined sharply.
Many left it after the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing were linked to extremist ideology. Some key militiamen were arrested in violent plots or jailed on weapons charges.
Membership dropped further after the election of Republican President George W. Bush in 2000, and when militia predictions of a Y2K collapse in 2001 fell flat.
In 2002, Charlie Puckett, former head of the Kentucky State Militia and a felon, was charged federally with possessing firearms, pipe bombs and nearly 35,000 rounds of ammunition. Around the same time, Steve Anderson, a former militia member, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after firing on a Bell County deputy sheriff.
Terrell, a veteran of the earlier era, said today's militia groups, including his own, are drawing members who are “scared” about what they see as an overreaching government trying to take over health care and private industry. Terrell's Web site explains that a “government gone wild” and “Obama's socialist agenda” are leading his group to “confront the threats to Freedom and the American way of life.”
The militia movement is rising in other states as well, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which based its estimate on government sources and its own information-gathering.
“The militia groups aren't equivalent to hate groups, they're anti-government in nature,” said Mark Pitcavage, a militia expert with the New York-based Anti-Defamation League. “ The basic ideology is a core belief that … our government is trying to slowly strip of us rights and freedoms.”
Fighting to save a way of life
Earlier this month, Freedom Fighter William Rushing held an M-4 semiautomatic rifle at the Knob Creek Gun Range, firing rounds at a paper target as he lay on the ground while another member, a former Marine, stood above him and others barking orders.
“Top left square will be your target!” he said. “You will load 10 rounds. … Fire at will!”
Rushing, a Louisville-area resident who described himself as “just left of the far-right wing,” said he got into militias years ago “after I seen what happened at Waco.” Rejecting liberal and conservative labels, and arguing that it's more than just a reaction to Obama, he said his focus is “survival of a way of life.”
Rushing said he stores months' worth of food and supplies at a cabin in the woods. While other members also keep remote locations stocked with a year's worth of weapons, gas masks, blankets, canned food, crank radios, bottled water, seeds and generators, some newer members have only a borrowed gun and a backpack.
The Freedom Fighters don't charge any dues to join, but some spend thousands on equipment from flak jackets to night-vision goggles.
Terrell said his group believes in the Constitution's Second Amendment, which states that “a well regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State” and lays out the right to “keep and bear arms.”
Terrell plans to keep recruiting and hopes to make the Freedom Fighters a more mainstream organization by maintaining his Web site and promoting a positive image, such as by holding blood drives.
At a recent meeting, he urged members to wear their uniforms wherever they go and explain their group to anyone who asks.
He then told members of their next training, in November, to which they were to bring gas masks and weapons: “You'll be tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed,” he said. “Better to learn what it feels like now.”
Reporter Chris Kenning can be reached at (502) 582-4697.
Additional Facts
Learn more about militias
Read the Southern Poverty Law Center's report, “The Second Wave: Return of the Militias” at
http://www.splcenter. org/news/item.jsp?aid=392.
Read about the Ohio Valley Freedom Fighters militia group at their Web site,
http://ovfreedomfighters.com.
http://www.courier-journal.com/artic...NTPAGECAROUSEL
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