DETROIT _ A foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has led to the arrest of 13 people, including members of a state militia group, and sparked a national discussion about these private, loosely organized paramilitary groups.
Michigan has had a long history of militia groups, which are active in every state, according to Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer at Vanderbilt University, who has studied them for more than a dozen years. The modern militias, Cooter said, date to the early 1990s.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Thursday afternoon seven of those who were charged were members or associates of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, one of an estimated two to three dozen militia groups in the state.
Members are accused of purchasing weapons, conducting surveillance, and plotting.
Some reports have referred to the Michigan Militia, which, according to Cooter, attempted to unite several separate groups in the state under one name. It was founded by Norman Olson of Alanson to resist perceived government encroachment on Constitutional rights.
But in recent years, Cooter said, Michigan Militia has become a catch-all term for all militia groups in the state.
"Michigan has always been a hotbed for militia activity," Cooter said. "It's one of the first states _ one of the first two _ to start having a formal militia organization in the early 90s and has had a strong presence ever since. The militias in Michigan have always been the kind to which other states' militias look up to."
For the most part, she said, militia groups are united in their ideology, and that, in part, is why Michigan has been a place where they have thrived: a sizable rural population, combined with beliefs and attributed to individual freedom and self-reliance.
The militia groups, she said, tend to support Second Amendment rights, limited government and a strict _ or literal _ interpretation of the Constitution. They tend to be somewhat secretive, inwardly focused, and not much of a threat.
Modern militia groups, Cooter said, mostly came into being in the early 1990s after sieges and standoffs that included a shootout at Ruby Ridge, in Boundary County, Idaho, in 1992, and in Waco, Texas, where the religious sect, the Branch Davidians, was based.
Most of the militia groups, Cooter added, are law-abiding.
But with the convergence of several trends _ the rise of social media, increased collaboration with white supremacy and conspiracy groups, and fears that the presidential election may not be legitimate _ Cooter said she fears some groups are becoming violent.
Cooter said she worries that President Donald Trump may be stoking fears about the election and the more violent groups, may be feeding off that, and the militia groups, which mostly have not been driven by race concerns, may be open up to that.
And, she said, another driver for violent organization has been the rise of QAnon, a cultlike far-right conspiracy theory that holds a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles are running a global child sex trafficking ring and plotting against Trump.
Thursday's case is the second major militia case brought by the feds in Michigan in a decade. The last one, however, was a major embarrassment for the federal government ending with the vindication of all the defendants, some who had been jailed for years.
That case involved the 2009 arrests of seven Hutaree militia members, who were charged with plotting a revolt against the government that included killing police officers with guns and bombs.
All faced up to life in prison, but their trial ended abruptly in 2012 when U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts concluded that the government failed to prove its case.
