{"id":60311,"date":"2020-10-03T07:28:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-03T12:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=60311"},"modified":"2020-10-03T07:28:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T12:28:47","slug":"60311","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=60311","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern-Day Militias Rise in Virginia<\/a><\/p>\n

Militia groups in Virginia will tell you that a militia is not really something you have to join\u2014if you\u2019re between 16 and 55 and able-bodied, you already belong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 1, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution says that a well-regulated militia is \u201ccomposed of the body of the people, trained to arms\u201d and represents the \u201cproper, natural, and safe defense of a free state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a member of the militia, as are you,\u201d said Nelson County resident Paul Cangialosi. \u201cIt exists, we\u2019re in it, and my position is that we have an obligation to be well-prepared. We have neglected that for well over 100 years, so now we\u2019re trying to put it back together.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cangialosi volunteers on his own and in conjunction with the Virginia Militia Alliance (VMA) to help stand up local militias across the state, and there\u2019s no shortage of interest. The VMA, whose motto is \u201cRevive, Reestablish, Restore,\u201d counts more than two dozen militia groups in central and southwest Virginia that have formed in just the past year, and hopes to eventually support one in every county in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the ascendant movement has generated a lot of questions from neighbors and observers about its methods and aims.<\/p>\n

What is their mission?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Nelson residents were curious to see signs advertising a \u201cmilitia muster call\u201d in late June, and more than 80 people, many carrying rifles, showed up to the gathering held on Zenith Firearms\u2019 grounds on Rt. 151 to find out about the group\u2019s mission and to meet other like-minded people. \u201cThe last time the militia was raised in Nelson and Amherst was in 1789 after the Revolutionary War when 680 citizens mustered under General George Washington, who led the Virginia militia as a whole,\u201d said Don Heres, coordinator of the Nelson County militia group called the Sheepdogs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though each group\u2019s methods vary, the overarching goal of Virginia\u2019s newly re-formed militias is to defend citizens\u2019 rights under the Constitution. Much of their energy derives from defending their Second Amendment right to bear arms because they believe that a) that right will ultimately protect them against a tyrannical government, and b) that right is currently under attack by government at all levels. Sic Semper Tyrannis (a Latin phrase meaning \u201cthus always to tyrants\u201d) is a rallying cry for the movement and is also the Virginia state flag motto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe support Constitutional government and we use the Second Amendment as our main battle cry because we know the Second protects the First, the Fourth, the Fifth, and more,\u201d said Heres. \u201cWe believe in the sanctity of private property. We don\u2019t think we\u2019re the cavalry out to save the world, and we don\u2019t represent ourselves as law enforcement because that would be illegal. But we\u2019re not going to let anyone burn our homes and businesses down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why are they forming?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The past year has featured a string of events that worry Virginia residents who are concerned about local government overreach and what they see as a weakening of conventional law and order nationwide. Governor Ralph Northam\u2019s promise to enact major gun control measures in late 2019 sparked a state-wide \u201cSecond Amendment Sanctuary\u201d protest movement, culminating in a January 2020 Richmond rally where more than 20,000 \u201c2A\u201d supporters gathered peacefully to oppose the proposed legislation. Despite the demonstrated opposition, the Virginia legislature passed a series of laws including a restriction on handgun sales, expanded background checks, and a \u201cred flag\u201d law, and protesters wondered what to do next.<\/p>\n

The answer, for many, was to organize a defensive network in the form of local militias, generally delineated by county boundaries. Floyd and Bedford County residents were quick off the mark, the latter holding a militia muster in February that attracted more than 500 people. Other groups soon followed suit\u2014residents of Botetourt, Amherst, and Campbell Counties each held musters of over 100 participants in February and March, and others such as Augusta, Buckingham, Frederick, Henrico, Louisa, Rockingham, Smith, Wise, and Wythe Counties all have militias in various stages of formation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Richmond [Second Amendment] event I met a lot of like-minded people and I could not believe all of the different walks of life and diversity I saw there\u2014that was very motivating for me,\u201d said Botetourt Citizens Defense Group coordinator Scott Booher, whose group\u2019s motto is \u201cOthers before self.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to call a muster and set a date for two weeks later, and we had 360 people show up, including a lot of women and people of color from neighboring counties. There\u2019s a huge amount of talent in the organization\u2014software engineers, business owners, pilots\u2014it\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Scott Booher, coordinator of the Botetourt Citizens Defense Group, speaks at a muster that attracted over 300 people in February. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Appomattox and Nelson Counties revved up their militias in early summer. \u201cThe whole idea of the 2A movement was to send a message to Richmond, and we felt like we were ignored by the legislature,\u201d said Nelson\u2019s Heres. \u201cSo, our next step was to take it to the next level to prove that we are serious about the Constitution. We said, \u2018Let\u2019s get together to make it formal.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Militia members also point to national calls to \u201cDefund the Police\u201d in response to incidences of police brutality, as well as continued rioting in cities across the U.S., as reasons to form and support militias. \u201cWe can see that these [far-left] groups have already expressed the anarchy they\u2019re willing to throw on people if they don\u2019t get their way, and how law enforcement is being denigrated,\u201d said Heres. \u201cI think there\u2019s an increased sense of urgency among us because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do they do?<\/b><\/h3>\n

To attend a typical militia muster, volunteers must be between 16 and 55 and be able to lawfully possess a firearm, and are sometimes, but not always, encouraged to bring an unloaded semi-automatic weapon for inspection. Participants may not wear clothing bearing political messages, and may only display the U.S., Virginia, or local county flags. Interested citizens older than 55 may also be part of the militia in various supporting roles.<\/p>\n

When they get together, these modern militia groups tend to spend their time training and preparing for situations where they may be called upon to help protect and defend their fellow citizens. Weekend training activities are coordinated by volunteers\u2014often experts in their field such as law enforcement, ex-military, and medical professionals\u2014and include events such as \u201crucks\u201d (long hikes while carrying gear), firearms practice and gun safety lessons, and instruction on first aid, basic survival strategies, and patrol tactics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an instructor sponsored by the American College of Surgeons teach a class for us on care for trauma victims,\u201d said Booher, \u201cand we held a search and rescue training session so we\u2019re prepared to assist the fire department, since we have the Appalachian trail running through this county and sometimes hikers get lost.\u201d Many local militia groups have decided to emphasize community service in tandem with their training. Booher described leading a crew of 40 members to help rebuild New Freedom Farm, a horse farm that provides therapy for injured veterans in Buchanan that was heavily damaged in a late spring storm.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary goal is to be a service organization of the county,\u201d said Heres. \u201cI\u2019m a CPR instructor for the Red Cross and we want to offer more basic first aid training, which would benefit all of us. And as there\u2019s been a rash of people buying guns in the last few months, we want to step up and say let us teach you the safety side of it so you don\u2019t shoot us or yourself.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the positive optics of community service, some militia supporters feel that those activities should play more of a secondary role. \u201cIt\u2019s not our primary objective,\u201d said Cangialosi. \u201cWe may assist in finding a missing civilian, but that\u2019s not what we\u2019re training for. We should be spending our time preparing for what\u2019s coming, potentially. People have normalcy bias\u2014a hard time wrapping heads around extraordinary events\u2014and if something catastrophic happened, we may not be prepared. I\u2019m really discouraged by the lack of urgency everybody seems to feel at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do they avoid extremist elements?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Militias are loosely defined as organizations of citizens who can be called upon for military or other service during a time of need, so the range of groups that refer to themselves as a militia is quite wide. Some militia-style groups active in the U.S.\u2014from the Posse Comitatus of the late 1900\u2019s to the Boogaloo movement of today, are animated by explicit racial or ethnic hatred and\/or extreme anti-government positions, and some of their members have committed heinous crimes in the name of their ideology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result, the word \u201cmilitia\u201d has such a negative connotation that some local organizations are avoiding the moniker altogether, instead calling themselves \u201cpatriot\u201d or \u201ccitizens defense\u201d groups. \u201cWe initially called ourselves the \u2018Nel-STAR\u2019 team\/militia, where \u2018STAR\u2019 stands for Special Task and Response,\u201d said Heres, \u201cand eventually changed our name to the Sheepdogs, because that\u2019s really representative of what we want to be. We are not racists, we\u2019re not white supremacists, we\u2019re just normal people with normal jobs who love the country and support the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Don Heres, coordinator of the Nelson Sheepdogs, speaks at a muster in June that drew over 80 people. Submitted photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many militia groups suspect that social media platforms such as Facebook are beginning to purge accounts with \u201cmilitia\u201d in the title. \u201cI personally have been deleted from Facebook unannounced,\u201d said Jennifer Bailey, administrator for the VMA. \u201cThey\u2019ve removed a lot of my colleagues because they are trying to muzzle us\u2014not everyone, but they\u2019ve definitely cherry-picked us.\u201d While some groups are migrating to other platforms such as Wimkin and Parler or forming closed groups, others feel the need for transparency and reassuring the public is more important than privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole movement is growing and our leadership teams talk about [how to vet our members] a lot,\u201d said Booher, whose group set up an open informational website. \u201cPeople may have the media-driven image that we\u2019re some kind of gun-toting rednecks, but I have not run into any of that\u2014racists, scoundrels, whatever you want to call it.\u201d VMA groups require their active members to have a concealed handgun permit, which means they must pass a state police background check. \u201cWe also spend time combing profiles and looking for any kind of behavior that would raise concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heres acknowledged that disagreements on social media got out of hand in the months before the Nelson Sheepdogs formally organized and changed their Facebook page to a private group. \u201cPeople would [virtually] show up from other groups such as \u2018Nelson Knows\u2019 and get into political battles over everything,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were people on our site who were not active with our militia, that had nothing to do with us, voicing opinions on there. People like that draw the wrong attention to what we\u2019re trying to do; we don\u2019t want radicals and extremists to come in and tarnish what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVetting is a process that evolves as we train alongside people, and we have to police our own just like everybody,\u201d said Cangialosi. \u201cWe had a fellow in the Campbell county militia who made some racist remarks to somebody on Facebook, and he was immediately cut loose from the group. Not a single militia that I know of at a county level in Virginia is organized around a racist premise. It\u2019s just not what we\u2019re here for.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is their legality?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Virginia Constitution clearly establishes a \u201cmilitia,\u201d capable of bearing arms to defend the state, which consists of the Virginia National Guard, the Virginia Defense Force, and an \u201cunorganized\u201d militia which encompasses these smaller, self-formed groups. While the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of individuals to bear arms and to peacefully assemble, Virginia\u2019s Constitution states that an activated militia is governed by \u201cthe civil power.\u201d This limitation implies that if a militia has not been specifically \u201ccalled up\u201d by the Governor or other civil authority, then it\u2019s not allowed to respond to critical situations as a single defensive unit, and members may act only as individual citizens and must avoid any coordinated paramilitary-style conduct.<\/p>\n

The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) is a watchdog group affiliated with Georgetown Law School that tracks and challenges what it calls \u201cunlawful private paramilitaries\u201d in the U.S. When armed citizens from multiple nearby militias defended a Lynchburg restaurant during a protest that turned violent in May, the ICAP accused them of breaking Virginia law by acting as an unauthorized \u201cmilitary unit,\u201d carrying firearms \u201cin furtherance of civil disorder,\u201d and \u201cexercising law enforcement functions.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The militia members said they had come to defend the restaurant as private citizens at the invitation of the owner on private property, not as law enforcement representatives. No charges were filed by Lynchburg police, but the incident illustrates the legal gray area surrounding militia activity and how members are able to respond to what they see as an emergency. \u201cIf the Governor is the one who\u2019s supposed to call us up, what happens if he\u2019s the tyrannical element that is obstructing us?\u201d said Heres. \u201cNortham is not going to call on us, he\u2019s going to let Richmond burn down.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes down to an individual\u2019s responsibility to protect themselves and their community,\u201d said Bailey. \u201cIf people are causing trouble and the Sheriff isn\u2019t going to step in, then it\u2019s the militia\u2019s job to step in, and the militia is not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, the VMA encourages militias to seek recognition from their county Boards of Supervisors and local Sheriffs to help them to \u201cachieve Constitutional status.\u201d \u201cWe are working to restore constitutionally legitimate militias in the state in a sustainable and unbreakable way,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n

Cangialosi wonders about the durability of the movement after the Second Amendment issue fades from the headlines. \u201cI think it\u2019s easy to say \u2018you\u2019re not taking my guns away,\u2019 but when the rubber meets the road, not a lot of people are willing to pay the price in terms of being prepared and committed. They\u2019d rather sit at home and watch TV,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking ahead, militia groups are concerned about the potential for chaos surrounding an uncertain election outcome in November, and are preparing to help maintain order if the need arises. \u201cPeople say \u2018we\u2019re here to defend the Second Amendment\u2019\u2014I say no, we\u2019re here to defend the Constitution,\u201d said Cangialosi. \u201cThat means your right to print whatever you want in your newspaper, somebody\u2019s right to protest for or against the police. It\u2019s the whole thing that we\u2019re defending, for everyone regardless of their race or political beliefs. It\u2019s not about right or left politics\u2014I\u2019m not a Trump fan and I didn\u2019t vote for him\u2014it\u2019s about being left alone to live the way you want, free from tyranny.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern-Day Militias Rise in Virginia Militia groups in Virginia will tell you that a militia is not really something you have to join\u2014if you\u2019re between 16 and 55 and able-bodied, you already belong.\u00a0 Article 1, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution says that a well-regulated militia is \u201ccomposed of the body of the people, trained … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights","category-rkba","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60313,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60311\/revisions\/60313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}