Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
American militia movement is a term used by law enforcement and security analysts to refer to a number of private organizations that include paramilitary or similar elements. These groups may refer to themselves as militia, unorganized militia, and constitutional militia. While groups such as the Posse Comitatus existed as early as the 1980s, the movement gained momentum after standoffs with government agents in the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, such groups were active in all 50 US states, with membership estimated at between 20,000 and 60,000. The movement is most closely associated with the American right-wing. Most modern organizations calling themselves militias are illegal private paramilitary organizations laws that require official sanctioning of a state government in order to be constitutional. While a common belief among members of modern paramilitary groups is that the constitution protects the ability of citizens to have the capability to overthrow the government by force when seen tyrannical, the Supreme Court has ruled differently.
In the United States, the patriot movement is a term which is used to describe a conglomeration of non-unified right-wing populist and nationalist political movements, most notably right-wing armed militias, sovereign citizens, and tax protesters. Ideologies held by patriot movement groups often focus on anti-government conspiracy theories, with the SPLC describing a common belief that "despise the federal government and/or question its legitimacy." The movement first emerged in 1994 in response to what members saw as "violent government repression" of dissenting groups, along with increased gun control and the Clinton administration.
Oath Keepers is an American far-right anti-government militia whose leaders have been convicted of violently opposing the government of the United States, including the transfer of presidential power as prescribed by the United States constitution. It was incorporated in 2009 by founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer and former paratrooper. In 2023, Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and another Oath Keepers leader, Kelly Meggs, was sentenced to 12 years for the same crime. Three other members have pleaded guilty to this crime, and four other members have been convicted of it.
Gloria Maria Navarro is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
Bob Thorpe is an American politician and a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing District 6 since January 14, 2013. He is also a part of the Tea Party Movement.
The 2014 Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between supporters of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and law enforcement following a 21-year legal dispute in which the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) obtained court orders directing Bundy to pay over $1 million in withheld grazing fees for Bundy's use of federally owned land adjacent to Bundy's ranch in southeastern Nevada.
Cliven D. Bundy is an American cattle rancher known for his role in the 2014 Bundy standoff. Bundy has advocated a philosophy opposed to what he views as federal government overreach. He is the father of Ammon Bundy, who in 2016 also led another armed standoff against the government, the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
The 2014 Las Vegas shootings occurred on June 8, 2014, when a married couple, Jerad and Amanda Miller, committed a shooting in northeastern Las Vegas, Nevada. Five people died, including the two shooters. The couple, who espoused extreme anti-government views, first killed two Las Vegas police officers at a restaurant before fleeing into a Walmart, where they killed an intervening armed civilian named Joseph Wilcox. The couple died after engaging responding officers in a shootout in Walmart; police shot and killed Jerad, while Amanda committed suicide after being wounded.
On January 2, 2016, an armed group of right-wing militants seized and occupied the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, and continued to occupy it until law enforcement made a final arrest on February 11, 2016. Their leader was Ammon Bundy, who participated in the 2014 Bundy standoff at his father's Nevada ranch. Other members of the group were loosely affiliated with non-governmental militias and the sovereign citizen movement.
Citizens for Constitutional Freedom (C4CF), later also known as People for Constitutional Freedom (P4CF), was the name taken on January 4, 2016, by an armed private U.S. militia that occupied the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in the U.S. state of Oregon from January 2 to February 11, 2016. The leader of the organization was Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven D. Bundy, who engaged in a standoff with the federal government over grazing rights on federal land.
Ammon Edward Bundy is an American anti-government militant and activist who led the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. He is the son of rancher Cliven Bundy, who was the central figure in the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada regarding unpaid grazing fees on federally-owned public land.
Robert LaVoy Finicum was one of the American militants who staged an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. After it began, the occupying force organized itself as the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, of which Finicum was a spokesman. He was the only fatality of the occupation.
This timeline of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge describes the progression of events leading up to, during, and after the occupation. The 2016 event played out over several weeks of public statements, occupying activity, and rallies.
United States v. Hammond was a court case in Oregon, United States, culminating from 20-year-long legal disputes between Harney County ranchers Dwight Lincoln Hammond Jr., 73, his son Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, and federal officials. In 2012, both Hammonds were charged with several counts in relation to two fires in 2001 and 2006, and eventually convicted of two counts of arson on federal land. Knowing they would face the statutory minimum of five years, the men waived their right to appeal these convictions in exchange for dismissal of several unresolved charges. After this mid-trial agreement was entered, the Hammonds were sentenced to a few months in jail, which they served. In 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated these sentences because they were shorter than the statutory mandatory minimum. The Ninth Circuit remanded to the district court for resentencing. The district court subsequently re-sentenced both Hammonds to the mandatory minimum of five years in prison, with credit for time served.
From January 2 to February 11, 2016, the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR) in eastern Oregon were seized and occupied by an armed group, later called Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, affiliated with private U.S. militias and the sovereign citizen movement following an earlier peaceful march in protest of the prison sentences for ranchers Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond, who were convicted of arson on federal land, sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and sought clemency from the U.S. president. The occupation received widespread coverage from media outlets.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) is a political organization of local police officials in the United States who contend that federal and state government authorities are subordinate to the local authority of county sheriffs and police. Self-described constitutional sheriffs assert that they are the supreme legal authority with the power and duty to defy or disregard laws they regard as unconstitutional. As a result, they may sometimes be referred to as sovereign sheriffs. The movement is related to previous nullification and interposition notions, and promotes such efforts. It has been described as far-right by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The CSPOA has claimed a membership of 400.
Douglas Charles Gillespie is an American retired law enforcement officer. He served as the 16th Sheriff of Clark County, Nevada from 2007 to 2015. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Ryan C. Bundy is an American cattle rancher and former Independent candidate in Nevada's 2018 Gubernatorial Election. He is the brother of Ammon Bundy and the son of Cliven Bundy, who was a central figure in the 2014 Bundy standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada over his unpaid grazing fees on federally-owned public land. Ryan Bundy was noted as a participant and leader in both the 2014 Bundy standoff and the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
Bundyville is a non-fiction true crime podcast created by Leah Sottile based on nine longform stories written and reported by Sottile. The series ran for two seasons and was produced by Longreads in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting.
