To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement

by Robert H. Churchill

“To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face addresses an area—the relationship of American political violence to American ideology—that is of growing importance and that is commanding an ever increasing audience, and it does so in a way like nothing else in the field.”
—David Williams, Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington

 

After the bombings of Oklahoma City in 1995, most Americans were shocked to discover that tens of thousands of their fellow citizens had banded together in homegrown militias. Within the next few years, numerous studies and media reports appeared revealing the unseen world of the American militia movement, a loose alliance of groups with widely divergent views. Not surprisingly, it was the movement’s most extreme voices that attracted the lion's share of attention.

In reality, Robert Churchill writes, the militia movement was neither as irrational nor as new as it was portrayed in the press. Churchill uses three case studies to illustrate the origin of some of the core values of the modern militia movement: Fries’ Rebellion in Pennsylvania at the end of the 18th century, the Sons of Liberty Conspiracy in Civil War–era Indiana and Illinois, and the Black Legion in Michigan and Ohio during the Depression. Building on extensive interviews with militia members, the author places the contemporary militia movement in the context of these earlier insurrectionary movements which, animated by a libertarian interpretation of the American Revolution, used force to resist the authority of the federal government.

 

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2009

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some useful analysis in some places, but is way too thesis-heavy and credulous towards the claims of militia enthusiasts, to the point of absurdity.

[University of Michigan Press]

After the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995 Americans were shocked to learn that homegrown extremists—not Middle Eastern or Muslim terrorists—had blown up the Alfred Murrah Federal Building. Prior to Oklahoma City, most of us believed that terrorism rarely, if ever, originated in the United States.

Within the next few years, however, numerous studies and media reports appeared uncovering the shadowy world of American militias, a loose alliance of groups with widely divergent views. Whatever their disagreements, they nevertheless shared a common interest in guns and martial training. Not surprisingly, it was the most extreme among them who attracted the lion's share of attention.

Equally disturbing and largely overlooked amid the growing publicity was a shared belief among the various militia factions that civilians had a right—even a duty—to take up arms against what they saw as the wanton exercise of unconstitutional power by the federal government. In the years following the government's actions at Ruby Ridge, in 1992, and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993, it was this concept, Robert Churchill argues, that played the greatest role in the growth of the American militia movement.

Churchill uses three case studies to identify the origins of the militia movement: Fries's Rebellion in Pennsylvania at the end of the eighteenth century, the Sons of Liberty Conspiracy in Civil War-era Indiana and Illinois, and the Black Legion in Michigan and Ohio during the Depression. Building on extensive interviews with militia members, the author places the contemporary militia movement in the context of earlier insurrectionary movements that, clinging to a libertarian interpretation of the American Revolution, used force to resist the authority of the Federal Government.