Militia groups are characterized by their obsession with field training exercises (FTXs), guns, uniforms typically resembling those worn in the armed forces and a warped interpretation of the Second Amendment. Antigovernment militia groups engage in firearm training and maintain internal hierarchical command structures.
Top Takeaways
In past years, anxieties and misinformation around the COVID-19 virus helped fuel belief in an impending takeover of the everyday lives of American citizens by the federal government. Narratives around a supposed loss of civil liberties, eroding freedoms and increased censorship have become core beliefs in antigovernment circles. Ideas surrounding the loss of civil liberties, combined with fears of impending gun confiscations, conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 general election and nativist fears, served as the bedrock for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
In 2024, the fallout from arrests and convictions from Jan. 6 continued to dismantle what had previously been leading national organizations. The result was a movement reverting to more of a local/regional model. The national structure that such militias as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters had used proved to be a liability in the law-enforcement crackdown after Jan. 6. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported in 2023, this resulted in many militias going back to smaller localized groups that are harder to infiltrate. In essence, militias are largely returning to their early 1990s “leaderless resistance” roots.
These militias often go out of their way to portray themselves as entities training to help their communities in times of emergencies. Upon examination of their trainings, however, the groups are invariably outfitted in tactical gear and armed with weapons. They are training for combat, not emergency preparedness. This intentional disconnect between their public messaging and actual training isn’t new. In fact, it’s the same tactic used in recent history by Stewart Rhodes with the Oath Keepers. Rhodes always framed his militia as offering training for emergency preparedness. At the trainings themselves, attendees would spend a short amount of time talking about first aid and the rest of the time engaging in combat training. As former Oath Keeper Jason Van Tatenhove told the Southern Poverty Law Center, the trainings were “down-and-dirty warfighting taught by actual warfighters that had done it.” While militias since the early 1990s have sometimes used this “emergency preparedness” or “neighborhood watch” façade, there seems to be a more consistent effort right now to play this public relations game.
Overall, militias are more difficult to track, with many not having much of a social media presence. While more mainstream social media spaces continue to deplatform overt militias, many groups appear to still exist on mainstream platforms under the guise of preparedness groups. When these militias do use social media, they go out of their way to frame themselves in the best possible light. In 2024, multiple militias touted their efforts mobilizing around Hurricane Helene. While they emphasized providing aid to victims, they really spent most of the time spreading conspiracies that helped create a hostile environment for federal agencies
In October 2024, following the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene, militia groups traveled to Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee soon after, claiming to provide disaster relief for those affected by the storm through fundraising, donating supplies, and volunteering. The Nantahala Reconnaissance Group, based around North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest, set up a GoFundMe page and temporarily changed its name to the Nantahala Relief Group. River Valley Minutemen also was able to raise almost $9,500 in donations and claimed to have transported over 10,000 pounds in goods, according to a report released by the group. These efforts bolstered militia claims that they’re community-focused, while they also tried to position themselves between local communities and the federal government.
At the local level, militias that describe themselves as Minutemen groups (a reference to the Minutemen Militias of the American Revolutionary War) seem to have separated themselves from groups that are more overtly political. Instead, they tend to focus on small unit tactics and cohesion. They, and other similar groups, have a local focus and push the idea that they are there to help the community, whether responding to a natural disaster or a perceived illegitimate government. Despite their localized structure, Minutemen groups can connect nationally with like-minded groups via social media, specifically Instagram. While the local model appears to be strategic shifts due to insurrection fallout, it also reflects a trend on the right by extremists seeking to build local political power.
At the regional level, militia groups are coming together to train. Militia groups will train together within their region, practicing tactical abilities through training exercises simulating combat scenarios. One example is a joint training exercise held in January 2024, which included members from the River Valley Minutemen and Central Ohio Minutemen. Members took part in a multi-day training exercise in full military kit, including rifles loaded with blank ammunition. In June 2024, members of the 1st Pennsylvania Mountain Regiment, 1st New England Minutemen and 3 Rivers Preparedness Group conducted a joint training, noting “Interoperability is important” in a follow-up Instagram post.
A number of antigovernment militias have sought recognition from county governments through official resolutions in order to legitimize their status and activities. The militias in question generally have their own command structures and choose their own leadership without input or oversight from the county. They want the seal of approval from county governments without the corresponding accountability. Although it’s not new for the antigovernment movement to try to influence local government, the current move for county recognition of militias brings a new set of concerns and complications.
In August 2024, a Hatewatch report showed that 30 of Virginia’s 95 counties have considered (or been asked to consider) a militia resolution or have been the site of a muster for a county militia. While a majority of counties studied did not recognize local militias, three counties — Bedford, Campbell, and Tazewell — and the independent city of Norton, had their boards of supervisors pass resolutions supporting local militias, although no specific local militias were named in the resolutions.
The national militia organizations that rose to prominence in the years before Jan. 6 continue to decline. The Three Percenter militias are a shell of what their national presence used to be. During 2024, Three Percenters continued to be arrested and charged for their roles in the insurrection, while also being the focus of media coverage that led to more unwanted scrutiny.
Even more affected was Oath Keepers, as Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the insurrection. Most of the group’s chapters have folded. However, that doesn’t mean an end for its supporters. An entity out of Utah is operating as Oath Keepers USA, which claims to be an organization separate from Rhodes’ entity. However, its founders are remaining board members and state leaders from Rhodes’ Oath Keepers. This “new” group says it will uphold “the original spirit of the now defunct ‘Oath Keepers’ organization.”
The militia movement was created to interact with the conservative mainstream. Because of that goal, it will continue to change and transform to meet various challenges and opportunities. The fallout from Jan. 6 affected the movement, but it is adapting to stay relevant and rebuild.
Key Moments
Early in 2024, militias and their supporters took part in the “Take Back Our Border” convoy and events that culminated in hard-right extremists from around the country flocking to Eagle Pass, Texas, and targeting immigrants, the service providers working with them, and law enforcement.
Paul Faye of Cunningham, Tennessee, planned to answer the United Patriot Party of North Carolina’s call to action and join them in Eagle Pass. However, he was derailed by his arrest in mid-January for possessing, selling or transferring an unregistered firearm. According to the criminal complaint against him, Faye intended to bring “explosive devices to the border without law enforcement detection” and “conduct acts of violence.” Faye shared his antigovernment and anti-immigrant beliefs with undercover agents investigating him, also saying he planned to act as a sniper for a militia.
In 2024, other militia members were convicted of crimes focused on the southern border. Two members of the 2nd American Militia were convicted by a federal jury for conspiracy to murder U.S. Border Patrol agents and attempting to murder federal agents. In 2022, the two militiamen planned to travel to Texas to shoot at illegal immigrants crossing the border and U.S. Border Patrol agents who would attempt to stop them. Jonathan S. O’Dell and Bryan C. Perry are each subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison without parole and up to a sentence of life in federal prison without parole.
What’s Ahead
Militias will continue to use a local/regional structure and try to reframe themselves as helpers of the community, instead of overthrowers of democracy. However, their field exercises involving full tactical gear will continue to illuminate their real purpose — combat training for what they see as an imminent and unavoidable battle with one-world government forces.
As Donald Trump begins his second administration, he has already been calling for a crackdown on immigration and mass deportations. Some militias, like the Texas Three Percenters and Arizona Border Recon, both claimed to have contacted Trump’s transition team and offered their assistance. Border militias will hope that President Trump’s administration will either provide policy changes that will legalize their anti-immigrant activities or least provide them rhetorical cover along the lines of what Trump did for the Proud Boys.
The Jan. 6 insurrectionists also hope that President Trump lives up to his statements about issuing pardons. If pardons do happen and include insurrectionists with concrete ties to militias, the movement may go on offense against its perceived enemies, as they may see their actions as having the support of the sitting president.
Background
The militia movement is rooted in the Posse Comitatus of the 1970s. The Posse Comitatus movement was based on the belief that the county sheriff had the ultimate authority over a county, serving as the highest legitimate law officer who was supposed to protect their community from an encroaching federal government. The sheriff was then able to recruit men from the community and form a posse that would enforce peace and security. Under this idea, the federal government had no authority to overrule a county sheriff. Over the years, the idea of the Posse Comitatus evolved and inspired what we now recognize as the paramilitary wing of the antigovernment movement. Current militia members believe they are true patriots, with many holding onto the notion that they are modern-day versions of 18th-century colonists who banded together to fight off the British. The idea of the “unorganized militia” and standing up to a tyrannical government helps shape their interpretation of the Second Amendment and cements their view that every American has a right to own firearms to keep the government in check.
As a result, the militia movement is primarily driven by fear of gun confiscation, globalization and antigovernment conspiracy theories; though these are perennial fears, the urgency among the movement to organize outside legitimate channels increases during Democratic administrations.
Over time, conspiratorial ways of thinking have evolved, and today many militia members peddle such narratives as the idea that nefarious actors within the federal government are working alongside foreign powers to chip away the United States’ sovereignty.
The current militia movement began in the early 1990s following the armed standoffs between the government and extremists at Ruby Ridge in Idaho and in Waco, Texas. At Ruby Ridge, the 11-day standoff took place in August 1992 after Randy Weaver, a Christian identity adherent and the patriarch of the Weaver family, failed to appear in court for firearm-related charges. In Waco in 1993, the Branch Davidians were amassing illegal weapons. This led to a 51-day standoff with federal law enforcement that culminated with a disastrous raid, which ended with the Waco compound burning to the ground, killing more than 70 Davidians. These deadly standoffs, and opposition to Clinton-era firearms laws, led many gun-rights radicals to form paramilitary groups. Their ranks declined following the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, bombing and throughout the Bush administration. The election of former President Barack Obama, however, ushered in a second wave of growth that peaked with new groups like Oath Keepers and Three Percenters.
The movement employs legitimate tactics (political activism, protests, community service) and illegitimate (paramilitary training and organization, armed standoffs, criminal and/or terroristic violence). The militia movement’s antecedent is the Christian Identity-inspired Posse Comitatus, and Christian Identity, overall, played a key role in its development and early shaping in the 1990s. Many of the militia movement’s one-world conspiracy theories parallel the antisemitic ones of hardcore white nationalists. Early militia framers, some of whom came from Identity circles, replaced “Jewish bankers” and “Jewish puppet masters” who supposedly controlled the world with different keywords, such as “international bankers” and “the United Nations.” Part of this was a strategic decision to downplay overt racism and antisemitism, so the militia movement could interact with more mainstream parts of the conservative movement. By leading with pro-gun, anti-tax and pro-property rights messages, the militia movement set itself up to try to appeal to a larger segment of the population. While the militia movement may have racist roots, it is not inherently racist.
This desire to tap into hot-button issues of the political mainstream has continued. As the federal government’s “War on Terror” following the terrorist attacks on 9/11 inspired anti-Muslim bigotry, sectors of the militia movement jumped on board. Similarly, as issues concerning immigration rose to prominence, some militias flocked to the border to illegally patrol and detain immigrants trying to cross the border. These developments reinforce the militia movement’s embrace of nativist beliefs under a thin veil of national security.
Notable historical moments in the militia movement, and a few examples of the dangers it presents:
- At the “Rocky Mountain Rendezvous” in Estes Park, Colorado, in 1992, 160 neo-Nazis, Klan members, antisemitic Christian Identity adherents and others arguably laid the groundwork for the militia movement that would explode in 1994.
- In January 1994, John Trochmann, a Randy Weaver supporter who attended events at Aryan Nations, launched the first major modern militia, the Militia of Montana.
- Oklahoma City Bombing, April 19, 1995: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The bombing killed at least 168 people and injured at least 680 people.
- In November 1995, members of the Oklahoma Constitutional Militia were arrested on charges of making bombs designed to blow up federal offices in several cities, along with abortion clinics and bars serving the LGBTQ+ community. At the time of their arrest, they had 210 pounds of fertilizer, a gallon of nitromethane and part of a toaster that could be used as a detonator. A jury will later convict the group’s leader, Willie Ray Lampley, and two of his followers. Lampley was a Christian Identity preacher.
- Two leaders of the Republic of Georgia militia were charged with manufacturing shrapnel-packed pipe bombs in April 1996. Another member was arrested later and accused of training a team to assassinate politicians.
- In October 1996, seven members of the Mountaineer Militia were arrested in a plot to blow up the FBI’s national fingerprint records center in West Virginia. Ringleader Floyd “Ray” Looker is sentenced to 18 years in prison. Three others were imprisoned for the plot, one for providing blueprints of the FBI facility to Looker.
- In December 1999, two members of the California-based San Joaquin Militia were charged in a plot to blow up two 12-million-gallon propane tanks, a television tower and an electrical substation in hopes of provoking an insurrection. The group’s leader pleaded guilty to plotting to kill a federal judge and to blow up the propane tanks
- Five members of the Alabama Free Militia were arrested in April 2007 in north Alabama during a raid that uncovered a cache of 130 homemade hand grenades, an improvised grenade launcher and other weapons. Raymond Kirk Dillard, the founder and “commander” of the group, had complained about Mexicans taking over the country and reportedly told his troops to open fire on federal agents if ever confronted.
- Arivaca murders, May 30, 2009: Shawna Forde, leader of the militant group Minutemen American Defense (MAD), coordinated an attempted home invasion that ended with a double homicide when members of the group killed Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia. The group, which operated on nativist fears, was hoping to find cash or drugs to help maintain their border vigilante operations. Forde and one other member were sentenced to death, while a third member was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the killings.
- Cliven Bundy’s Battle at Bunkerville, Nevada, April 2014: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department engage in a four-day standoff against Cliven Bundy and his antigovernment followers, including several militia members. The dispute, which originated over cattle-grazing fees, ended when the BLM withdrew to avoid a violent clash with antigovernment supporters.
- Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Occupation, Jan. 2, 2016: Antigovernment adherents and militia members descended onto the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Princeton, Oregon, for a 41-day standoff with law enforcement. The move, led by Ammon Bundy, was an attempt to get the federal government to hand over public lands to states.
- White Rabbit Three Percenters Illinois Patriot Freedom Fighters Militia, March 2018: Members of the White Rabbit extremist group operated a criminal network that planned to bomb an Islamic Center in Minnesota, as well as vandalize a women’s health clinic. Two of the accused pleaded guilty, and one was convicted and sentenced to 53 years in prison for the plot. Two of the men, Michael McWhorter, 33, and Joe Morris, 26, both of Clarence, Illinois, pleaded guilty in the District of Minnesota. The men were sentenced to 190 months (about 16 years) and 170 months (about 14 years) in prison. The leader of the group, Emily Claire Hari, 51, pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
- UCP Illegal detainment of migrants, April 20, 2019: The militia group United Constitutional Patriots gained national attention after the group documented their activities outside Flora Vista, New Mexico, while searching for and detaining migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Group leader Larry Mitchell Hopkins was eventually sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for illegally owning a firearm as a felon.
- Michigan kidnapping plot, Oct. 8, 2020: Members of the Wolverine Watchmen, along with members of the Michigan Militia, were arrested by the FBI and Michigan State Police after plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The group was motivated by wild conspiracy theories that aimed to overthrow the state government and murder the governor.
- Jan. 6 insurrection, Jan. 6, 2021: Violent domestic extremists, including antigovernment militias like the Oath Keepers, stormed the Capitol building to stop the certification of the results from the 2020 general election. Members of the group have been convicted of multiple federal charges. At least five people died in connection with the attack.
- Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy, Nov. 29, 2022: Elmer Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers militia, was convicted in U.S. District Court of seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and was later sentenced to 18 years in prison. Rhodes and four other Oath Keepers — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — were convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding. Meggs was convicted of seditious conspiracy as well.
2024 Militia Movement Groups
* — Asterisk denotes headquarters.
ALX Civil Training Corps
Alexandria, Virginia
American Pathfinders
Alaska
American Patriots Three Percent
Alabama
Delaware
Louisiana
Pennsylvania
Washington
Amherst County Militia
Amherst County, Virginia
Appomattox County Militia
Appomattox County, Virginia
Arizona Border Recon
Phoenix, Arizona
Arizona State Militia
Sierra Vista, Arizona
Bedford County Militia
Bedford County, Virginia
Campbell County Militia
Campbell County, Virginia
Central Ohio Minutemen
Columbus, Ohio
Central Vigilantes Irregulars
Virginia
Colorado Mountain Boys
El Paso County, Colorado
Cottonwood Militia
Cottonwood, California
First Pennsylvania Mountain Regiment
Pennsylvania
First West Virginia Volunteer Mountain Infantry
West Virginia
Iron Hills Contingency Group
Kentucky
Kings Men
South Carolina
Light Foot Militia, 63rd Battalion
Spokane County, Washington
Lynchburg Constitutional Militia
Lynchburg County, Virginia
Mayhem Solutions Group
Casa Grande, Arizona
Mid-Missouri Minutemen
Cole County, Missouri
Missouri Militia
Jackson County, Missouri
Mountain State Contingency Group
Webster County, West Virginia
West Virginia
Nantahala Reconnaissance Group
North Carolina
New England Minutemen
New Hampshire
Northeast Guerilla Training Group
Vermont
Oath Keepers
Nottoway County, Virginia
Patriots for America
Dallas, Texas
Peak and Pines Irregulars
Tennessee
Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia
Pennsylvania
The Real Three Percenters Idaho
Idaho
River Valley Minutemen
Hamilton County, Ohio
Southampton County Militia
Southampton County, Virginia
Southern Mountains Observers Group
South Carolina
Texas Three Percenters
Texas
This is Texas Freedom Force
Texas
Tidewater Volunteers
Norfolk, Virginia
Three Percent of Washington
Washington
Three Rivers Irregulars
Virginia
US County Preparedness Team
Maricopa County, Arizona
Yavapai County, Arizona
Arizona
Verde Valley Communications & Preparedness Group
Yavapai, Arizona
Veterans On Patrol
Arizona
Virginia Kekoas
Virginia
Watchmen
New York
York County Poquoson Community Missions
York County, Virginia