Gun Control Debate Fueling ‘Explosive’ Rise in Far-Right Extremist Groups: Report
The number of anti-government, far-right extremist groups has soared to record levels since 2008 and they are becoming increasingly militant, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It says the number of groups in the “Patriot” movement stood at 1,360 in 2012, up from 149 in 2008 when Barack Obama was first elected president, an increase of 813%. The report said the rise was driven by opposition to Obama and the “spluttering rage” over federal attempts at gun control.
Those who were identified as “militia” groups or the paramilitary wing of the Patriot movement, numbered 321, up from 42 in 2008, the SPLC said in its report.
Concern over a “truly explosive growth” of groups on the radical right, along with a rise in domestic terrorist plots, has prompted the SPLC to write to US attorney general Eric Holder and Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano, warning of the potential for domestic terrorism and urging them create a new, inter-agency task force to assess whether it has adequate resources to deal with it.
The report says that the numbers far exceed the “high-water mark” of 820 groups in 1990s when the rise in militias was fuelled by the Waco siege, the Brady Bill and the 1994 assault weapons ban.
Richard Cohen, the SPLC president and a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s group to counter violent extremism, wrote in the letter: “On October 25, 1994, six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, we wrote attorney general Janet Reno about the growing threat of domestic extremism. Today we write to express similar concerns.
“As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns.”
Timothy McVeigh drove a truck full of explosives into a federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people, 19 of them children under six, and injured hundreds more.
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