MilitiaWatch
MW is now going to be throwing together a short news round-up at the start of each week based upon the happenings of the past week. For as long as militia news remains at the forefront of US media, MW will gather some of the more interesting or concerning points here, linking to reading both within the MW archives and outside. Here’s the weekly(ish) update for 12 October 2020.
MilitiaWatch has been covering the Three Percent movement for nearly 4 years now. In that time, splinter, disintegration, and reintegration events have been plentiful as a field of highly competitive and extremely opinionated armed folks vie for influence and authority in outbursts that punctuate the seasons’ passing. A new shattering of the III% movement has led to new realignments amidst a season of great turmoil and action.
Since the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department, every single state in the US has had a major protest in response. In some of these states, certain towns, cities, and capitals saw an escalation in tactics against the status quo.
With this action, of course, came several waves of reaction. These have included conservative and liberal media alike’s “antifa provocateur” or “outside agitator” claims, despite little evidence beyond vague gesturing from police departments and mayors that have been proven wrong time and time again. Other reactions have included those from GOP lawmakers calling for military force to be used against protesters, even earning some a platform in the Paper of Record. Yet other reactions from ostensibly the right have been those militia or militia-like groups involving themselves in or around these political happenings.
This post is another promised follow-up from a previous piece in an ongoing saga of III% splinters in the past year. Therefore, it is highly recommended that readers of this piece first review of what has preceded it within the movement:
Much has happened since this previous article, but this update seeks to focus on another falling out emanating from the January 20th Virginia gathering anticipated in the previous article. Another article will detail more of this gathering in context with future militia activism, but this one focuses on an important fracture within the movement.
Mike Rage and Tammy Lee seemed confident and excited about the energy surrounding the January 20 2nd Amendment rally planned as a march on Virginia’s capital following the threat of gun reform at the state level. They were by no means the primary organizers of the rally but had been hyping up the event and preparing for New York organizing well beyond the MLK Day gathering, too. This future planned event has since been canceled due to COVID19-related closures.
This post is a follow-up on some of the loose ends of a previous piece on splinters within the III% movement, particularly with regards to the III% Security Force and its affiliated activists and figureheads.
Much has happened since this earlier piece, but this update seeks to focus on the November 9th gathering anticipated in the previous article alongside the politics, uprisings, and fallout surrounding the event. I strongly recommend reading this previous bit of writing before diving into this one.
From a “redress of grievances” on February 23, 2019 (termed “223”) to its March 23 follow-up to a planned November 9 rally in DC, Chris Hill of the III% Security Force (III%SF) and Georgia Security Force III% (GSFIII) seemed to be organizing a new era of national militia gatherings.
In Summer 2019, around an environmental bill at the Oregon State House, threats of militia involvement at the State House forced a closure of the session and numerous news articles to boot. So how did this all happen?
This post is a long read on the III% movement, filling in some of the gaps from my original GSFIII piece and in the time since. This will likely be followed by other minor updates, which will be linked at the end of this piece as they are completed.