The indictment in Michigan this week of nine members of a Christian militia group reminds us that certain kinds of nuts are always in season. These characters were members of Hutaree, which means Christian warrior. The fringe organization is also known as the Michigan Militia. Federal prosecutors have charged the eight men and one woman with a bizarre plot to murder a law enforcement official, then launch a large-scale attack with “weapons of mass destruction” on the subsequent funeral procession in order to kill large numbers of lawmen.

According to the U.S. Attorney in Detroit, the militia members hoped their action would cause a nationwide uprising against the government. The Grand Jury indictment accused defendants of seditious conspiracy and a variety of weapons charges.

The arrests bring back memories of Timothy McVeigh, the militia sympathizer executed for masterminding the April, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that killed 168 people and injured 450. The tragedy raised public awareness of the existence militia and hate groups scattered around the country. Prior to the bombing, most people viewed the militia as small bands of black helicopter obsessed kooks, who believed the United Nations planned to form a world government to control our nation, and Christians in particular.

In the aftermath of Oklahoma City, CNN had me traipsing around Idaho and Montana in search of the lunatic fringe. They were not difficult to find. Indeed, some were individual families with mental health issues. In Idaho, for example, a rancher had an ongoing battle with local lawmen and Fish and Game authorities over his freedom to illegally raise elk. He was armed and claimed to be dangerous if anyone crossed his property line. Lawmen decided to wait him out, rather than risk violence. I don’t recall the outcome.

The principle wait and see also applied in a Montana stand-off. A nutty character ensconced in a shabby compound refused to surrender to federal and local lawmen who were trying to serve a warrant for minor charges. When I arrived to do an interview, his 12-year-old son was stationed on the roof of the house with a 22-caliber rifle to guard against uninvited intruders. I must have known the password since I was allowed to enter. I discovered that the only person allowed to leave the compound was the kid’s mother. She regularly drove to town to collect foods stamps and pick-up welfare checks—an hilarious contradiction of the anti-government stances  her husband professed to believe. 

During my interview, I suspected he was a meth addict. If not, he did a great impression—telling me that the FBI had installed surveillance cameras in cows grazing in a nearby pasture. The family’s security system was as comical as spy cows and the rooftop patrol by the kid. In the shack’s windows, dozens of soft drink bottles were carefully stacked so that they would come crashing down if anyone tried to enter. Outside the shanty, the desperado had constructed a watch tower so flimsy that the local sheriff laughingly told me he was waiting for it to collapse while the fugitive was at the top. That way, he could arrest the man as he was being transported to the hospital with broken neck.

Comedy, notwithstanding, all militia and hate groups, and their sympathizers have  to be considered dangerous. I attended a couple of anti-government meetings that caused me to squirm while listening to the rhetoric.

The Southern Poverty Law Center certainly takes them all very seriously, recognizing that any hate group populated by crazy people is capable of committing violence. And the law center springs into action when violence occurs. After the Ku Klux Klan burned a black Baptist church in 1995, the not-for-profit Montgomery, Alabama watchdog organization filed a lawsuit on the church’s behalf and won the largest judgment ever rendered against a hate group.

Since the election of President Obama, law center spokesman Mark Potok says there has been a surge of so-called “Patriot” organizations and militia groups that advocate disrupting government. Given the proliferation of hate-mongers, law enforcement agencies are faced with the prospect distinguishing between groups that truly pose a threat and the loudmouth gun-nuts who try to impress friends with big talk. Making that determination requires considerable work.

My hunch is that much of the evidence gathered against the Hutaree militia in Michigan is the result of an undercover informant—although there is no evidence of a snitch made public yet. But that is the usual manner lawmen build cases in these types of investigations. There is are inherent dangers in the investigative technique that includes entrapment and/or a lying informants. The Hutaree website shows a bunch of guys running through the forest with guns. The propaganda of these ”Christian Warriors” seems more focused on the arrival of the Anti-Christ than causing a revolution against the government.

So far, the Hutaree group has only been convicted by press release.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.