We’re teaming up with Guns & America to bring you new reporting on what part America’s armed militia groups might play in the election in the weeks ahead.
A recent study suggests there are five states most at risk from these fringe players: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon. Ahead of Election Day, that’s made some concerned about their own safety.
From a review by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and MilitaWatch, summarized by New York:
“There is an increasing narrative and trend,” researchers wrote, “that groups are organizing to ‘supplement’ the work of law enforcement or to place themselves in a narrowly defined ‘public protection’ role in parallel with police departments of a given locale.”
The report provides fresh evidence that while there is an extremist threat to public safety, it’s coming from the right and not the left. Trump’s denunciations of antifa, which have been picked up by other Republicans and some Democrats, are a smokescreen. Far-right militias are more active, and more dangerous, and they’re growing at a disturbing clip. In Trump, many see a champion.
How big of a threat are armed militia groups during and after the election?
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