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Such wild allegations have proved to be an effective method of grabbing the attention of the disaffected and recruiting them into militias. Most experts agree that the groups are multiplying and their membership is expanding, though estimates vary. Chip Berlet, who studies militias for Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts think tank, says militia units exist in 30 states, including large organizations in Michigan, Montana and Ohio, and he suspects there may be units in 10 other states. Although there may be hundreds of thousands of people who identify with the patriot movement, Berlet estimates that only about 10,000 people have actually joined the armed militias.
On their wilderness training excursions, these would-be warriors give themselves a vigorous workout. In Michigan the members of a local militia build their endurance by running army-style outdoor obstacle courses or tramping long distances across rugged terrain while holding heavy semiautomatic rifles. John Schlosser, coordinator of Colorado's Free Militia (claimed membership: 3,000), admits that his group's doomsday preparations sometimes amount to no more than "playing games in the woods." Militia members, sometimes with their families in tow, play hide-and-seek and capture the flag, all to build conditioning in case of an armed conflict.
When it comes to organization, however, the troops go high-tech. The militia movement, says Berlet, "is probably the first national movement organized and directed on the information highway." Patriot talk shows, such as The Informed Citizen, a half-hour program broadcast on public-access TV in Northern California, spread the word that American values are under attack from within and without. Militias also communicate via the Patriot Network, a system of linked computer bulletin boards, and through postings in news groups on the Internet. One recent posting by a group calling itself the Pennsylvania Militia, more specifically the F Company of the 9th Regiment, asked for "a few good men" to join up and "stand up to the forces of federal and world tyranny."
The patriot movement was galvanized by two events: the bloody face-off in rural Idaho between white separatist Randy Weaver and law-enforcement officials in 1992 and the fiery siege of the Waco, Texas, compound of cult leader David Koresh in 1993. The violent confrontations helped convince many would-be militia members that the U.S. government was repressive as well as violently antigun and untrustworthy. "The Waco thing really woke me up," says Frank Swan, 36, a trucker who is a member of a militia in Montana. "They went in there and killed women and children."
Critics of the militias say the genuine concern on the part of patriots for second-amendment rights could, in many cases, turn into something more menacing. In October the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith issued a report titled Armed & Dangerous, which charged that militias were "laying the groundwork for massive resistance to the Federal Government and its law- enforcement agencies."