Volunteer Militia Keeping the Peace in Ferguson

Like it or not, defensive violence as a moral imperative is an important part of our nation’s history. The key distinction here is defensive.

Regardless of the group or time in history, the desire of individuals to protect themselves, their loved ones, their property, and their neighborhoods – and if need be, to form voluntary associations for that purpose – transcends race, ethnicity, income, or religion.

Nor is such action a relic of some allegedly anarchic past, like the “Wild West,” or the days before professional police forces.

During the 1992 Los Angeles riot, many people closed off entrances to their neighborhoods and posted armed guards to discourage attackers. Store owners in Koreatown fought back with handguns (God bless those high capacity magazines), successfully driving looters away from their businesses. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there were several gun battles between organized neighbors and would-be looters in New Orleans. In the Algiers neighborhood, the ad-hoc defensive militia totalled about thirty people armed with shotguns, handguns, and semi-automatic rifles.

Today several suburbs of St. Louis are in a state of anxiety over the ongoing violent protests sparked by the shooting of an unarmed black man by a police officer in Ferguson, and the subsequent grandy jury decision in that case.

It’s certainly possible to sympathize with the anger many people in that community are experiencing. Since at least 9/11/01 the police in this country have been treated as minor deities, and their growing militancy toward the populace is a predictable consequence. The need of people to be constantly ingratiating themselves with cops is as common as it is embarrassing, and the police themselves are clearly guilty of reading their own glowing press.

Race-baiting public figures and opportunistic politicians are making much hay over alleged “white privilege,” but the real problem is Blue Privilege. President Obama’s decision to send (now, blessedly, former) Attorney General Eric Holder to Missouri last summer to hear the complaints of residents there about police abuse should be considered laughably ironic, but the complaints themselves are no doubt warranted.

Regardless of the underlying social problem here, we can all agree that those on the sidelines, the business owners trying to make a living in these communities, are not responsible for what happened to Michael Brown. If rioters are angry at the police they should target the police, not the property of their entrepreneurial neighbors. That so many people could shout “No Justice, No Peace” while unjustly robbing and looting from innocent bystanders mauls their message almost beyond repair.

The government response has been worse than useless. Sending in the National Guard should have brought some sense of relief to Ferguson residents, but any hope that they were the intended beneficiaries of this decision surely died when soldiers took up positions defending the police and public facilities instead of the main commercial centers.

Not depending on bureaucrats and politicians, a group of civilians decided to organize themselves, offering protection to beleaguered business-owners. The New York Times reported on Sunday that the group, operating under the “auspices” of a national organization called the Oath Keepers, recruited volunteers from the St. Louis area to descend on Ferguson and surrounding communities to offer free armed security.

“It’s really a broad group of citizens, and I’m sure their motivations are all different,” said Sam Andrews, who leads the group, which numbers anywhere from 5 to 500. “In many of them, there’s probably a sense of patriotism. But I think in most of them, there’s probably something that they probably don’t even recognize: that we have a moral obligation to protect the weakest among us. When we see these violent people, these arsonists and anarchists, attacking, it just pokes at you in a deep place.” [Emphasis mine]

Careful not to call themselves a “militia” – which would surely have the press in a tizz and desperate to make the group out to be anti-government racists, despite an estimated one in ten of its members being black, and Andrews’s insistence that “I don’t want any racists in my group” – these armed volunteers are “roaming rooftops” to discourage attacks and maintain law and order. “When they’re here, there’s definitely a weight lifted off of our shoulders,” said Davis Vo, owner of the New Chinese Gourmet restaurant. “I’d be lying if I said otherwise.”

It has been said that we shouldn’t steal, because the government hates competition; it certainly hates it when anyone exposes its incompetence. Therefore it comes as no surprise that police are apparently hassling these volunteers. Can’t have us “mere mundanes,” as Idaho blogger Will Grigg sarcastically refers to the people, actually performing a public service the police seem incapable or unwilling to provide, can we?

But despite such foolishness, true patriots and public servants – as in, those who do not receive a costume, badge, and tax-provided paycheck for their actions – are in Ferguson, Missouri, showing again that the desire to resist injustice is alive and well in the United States, and that dignified people will, if necessary, repel violence with justifiable, defensive violence.

Now that’s a “service to country“ truly deserving everyone’s appreciation.