SPLC report smears Oath Keepers, militias

August 14, 9:31 AMGun Rights ExaminerDavid Codrea

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Courtesy Oleg Volk, A Human Right

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The well-paid exploiters at the misnamed Southern Poverty Law Center are at it again.

At what?

Lumping patriots and Constitutionalists with haters. "Return of the Militias" points a trembling finger at, among others, the principled members of Oath Keepers. I guess the fund raising efforts require that some threats be fabricated by accusation.

SPLC's Larry Keller asserts they are "particularly worrisome." A fair question might be "Why"" or "To whom?" It's not like they're associated with anything other than patriotism, in spite of his attempts to insinuate racist ties.

It's not even clear why they've been included in a "report" on militias. Here's what they're about:

Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, firefighters, and the Coast Guard who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God.

Our motto is "Not on our watch!"

Here's the thing about militias--the Founding Fathers considered them "necessary to the security of a free State." But today, "thanks" to a combination of apathy, ignorance and exploitation, there's a lot of confusion as to who and what they are. And one of the most destructive lies that's wormed its way into the public discourse is that they've been legally replaced by the National Guard.

Not true. Here’s what the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the United States Senate Ninety-Seventh Congress had to say about that:

Congress has established the present National Guard under its own power to raise armies, expressly stating that it was not doing so under its power to organize and arm the militia.

Then we have the assertion that in order to claim the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, citizens must be members of a “well regulated militia.” No less an authority than Alexander Hamilton disagreed with that, writing in The Federalist No. 29:

To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss...Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped…

I'll have more to say about militias in the coming weeks--I just finished "To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrants Face" by Robert H. Churchill. What a read. What an education. I'll be discussing it in the near future.