Long-Time Militia Leader Mike Vanderboegh Has Died
In 2013 and 2014, Vanderboegh sent emails to Connecticut State Police, warning of bloody scenarios if they tried to enforce a new state gun control law. He also published the home addresses and phone numbers of state legislators who voted for the measure. He said he had lined up “reporters for a major news organization” to cover the ammunition-clip giveaway to garner public attention.
Vanderboegh first appeared on the national antigovernment scene after the bloody 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. He claimed as a younger man he was sympathetic to ideals of Communism, but had done a 180-degree conversion to fully believe that the U.S. Constitution and, particularly the 2nd Amendment, guarantees gun ownership unrestricted by any federal or state laws.
Initially identified with a militia-style group called “Sons of Liberty,” Vanderboegh later got involved with the anti-immigrant crusade. In the mid-2000s, he participated in patrols on the U.S.-Mexican border with his small Alabama Minuteman Support Team. But his national standing in antigovernment circles really blossomed when he became one of the first Patriot mouthpieces to coin the “III Percent” term, claiming that during the American Revolution the “active forces in the field against the King’s tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists.”
