Defying a federal judge’s order, about 40 armed protesters marched onto the outdoor plaza at the U.S. Courthouse in Spokane where one of their leaders was arrested last week for carrying a loaded assault rifle onto federal property – a seemingly scripted event that galvanized concern nationwide from pro-gun, militia and antigovernment groups.
Pro-gun and Patriot activists say they are planning a demonstration next Friday at the U.S. Courthouse plaza in Spokane, where one of their leaders was arrested after brazenly carrying a loaded assault rifle and a semiautomatic pistol.
A Minnesota man who had been making an independent film depicting the coming of a “New World Order” in America was found dead with his family over the weekend in what investigators have said appears to be a murder-suicide.
A slate of national and state antigovernment “Patriot” movement figures—including former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, antigovernment propagandist Mike Vanderboegh and Ammon Bundy, the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy—is scheduled to lead Saturday’s “We Will Not Comply” rally in Olympia, Wash., protesting a gun-control measure taking effect this month.
Rancher Cliven Bundy has long been at odds with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). For 20 years he has taken an increasingly defiant stance toward the agency, refusing to pay what is now more than $1 million in grazing fees and fines to a federal government he does not recognize.
Far-right gun enthusiasts say they are planning to build a walled city in northern Idaho for “Patriots” who love the Constitution and hate “liberals, Marxists and blue voters.” But a convicted con man is the primary promoter of the fantastic scheme, and there’s little to suggest that it will ever become what its backers are promising.
