Beth Holloway's List: Research Example

• The Conflict
  

  Militia movements—and militant individuals—have violently attacked people and groups in the United States. Government officials, especially the U.S. government, and specifically the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) have countered the militias' actions.
• The stated beliefs of the militia groups are often based in Christianity. The militia groups often regard the U.S. as overrun with and under the control of Jews and "godlessness."
• he militia groups often believe that the U.S. government is unjustly taxing them, limiting gun ownership, and inflicting regulations and restrictions on them.
• • Background for the devloment of the militia movement

• • Militias grew in the wake of the farm crisis of the early 1980s.
• ovenant Communities. Freeman. Posse Comitatus. Christian Identity. Aryan Nations. Y2K. One World Government. New World Order.

  • Names of groups
• white supremacist named Randy Weaver and his family moved to the top of a remote mountain to separate themselves from a society and government they believed discriminated against whites, was infiltrated by Jews, and was anti-Christian.

  • Example of anti-Semitism

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• "Like any extremist group, I don't think in reality they believe that they're going to personally overthrow the U.S. government. The plan is to basically be the match or the spark to ignite the revolution."

  • Good commentary
• Last month, David Stone Sr. and Tina were among nine people indicted on sedition and weapons charges in what prosecutors say was a plot to spark an anti-government uprising by killing police.
• "Do I think all the cops out here would — they would fight right alongside some Chinese trooper, heck yeah," he says on one of the tapes. "It's all about power. It's about the authority. They see us as the little people."

  • Demonstrates warped view of the gov't
• That's when the FBI says it got word that the Hutarees were building bombs and detonating them off in the woods. For the most part, the FBI says it leaves militia groups to their own devices. But when explosives are involved, officials feel a line has

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• The group's leader, David Brian Stone, along with his wife, two sons and several other co-conspirators, had stockpiled guns, ammunition and explosives, according to the indictment. The idea was to start by killing a police officer — either during a traffic stop or perhaps by luring the officer with a bogus 911 call — and then launch a second attack at the officer's funeral. They allegedly planned to do that by, among other things, using improvised explosive devices along the funeral route.
• According to the group's Web site, it is in training to do battle with the Antichrist. It isn't entirely clear how the federal government fits into that battle, though the group apparently sees local and state police as "foot soldiers" for the federal government. It views the federal government as the enemy.

  • Apocolyptic view

• Although the Michigan volunteer militias are still big on gun rights, and wary of Washington, they aren't necessarily violent.
• an umbrella militia group in Michigan called the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia,

• The first thing that is always thrown at us is that we are a racist group," he said. "That's most definitely not the fact. The second one is that militias in general are paranoid — or prepared to fight if things don't go their way.  

   

    "And the truth of that matter is that militia is a defensive organization and always needs to be structured that way."

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