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don't forget DNC believes the 2nd amendment gives GOVERNMENT the right to form militias
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April 19th is the gunlover's favorite day:
Newsweek/May 1, 1995
It begins with the Cohen Act, rammed through Congress by liberals bent on eliminating the private ownership of firearms. Jackbooted federal agents go door to door across the country, seizing weapons from law-abiding Americans. Facing what they see as imminent federal dictatorship, a band of white Christian patriots go underground to fight back. Their tactic is terror - building a bomb from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, loading it in a delivery truck and setting it off outside FBI headquarters in Washington. Seven hundred people die - and minutes later, one of the terrorists calls the Washington Post. "White America shall live!" he cries.
This dark fantasy, with it chilling resemblance tot he attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City last week, is among the opening episodes of "The Turner Diaries," a wretched 1978 novel that has long had cult status on the gun-toting far right. Written pseudonymously by a former physics professor and sometime neo-Nazi named William Pierce, the book tells how a group of citizen-geurillas started race war in America, overthrew the government, killed prominent Jews and launched a U.S. nuclear strike on Israel. "As soon as I heard what happened [in Oklahoma City], I just had this gut reaction," said John Nutter of Michigan State University, who follows the paramilitary right. "It's straight out of the 'Turner Diaries'."
Pulp fiction - even rancidly anti-Semitic pulp fiction - is only the beginning of America's crash course on homegrown terrorism. From experts like Nutter, from law-enforcement sources at the state and federal levels - and from right-wing extremists themselves - NEWSWEEK correspondents have assembled a disturbing profile of a secretive, paranoid and profoundly alienated political subculture that may now constitute a threat to law and order.
This sub-culture, whose political genealogy can be traced in part to notorious white-supremacists groups like Aryan Nations, The Order and the Ku Klux Klan, has spawned a nationwide movement of heavily armed "patriot" and "militia" groups that are only loosely connected to each other.
There are no reliable numbers on membership, which is unevenly distributed across more than 30 states, but some say up to 100,000 Americans are involved. And while no one says all - or even most - of these militiamen are turning violent, last week's bombing has clearly shattered the complacency of federal and state authorities. Terrorism, we have learned, is as American as crab grass - and just about as difficult to uproot.
We do not yet know, of course, whether the perpetrators of last week's attack ever read "The Turner Diaries." But we know a lot about the ideology of the patriot/militia movement and about its tendency to take apocalyptic, deeply conspiratorial views of U.S. politics. The federal government and all it seems to stand for is the Enemy.
To some true believers, Washington is simply "the beast," while others, influenced by the anti-Semitic strain in supremacist literature, call it ZOG, for "Zionist Occupation Government." Bill Clinton, Janet Reno and most Democratic politicians are liberal elitists who betray traditional American values. Multinationalism - and any U.S. cooperation with the United Nation - is anathema.
The Federal Reserve Board, and possibly all banks, are financial oppressors; the G-7 economic summits, NAFTA and GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, are evidence of America's gradual surrender to a "New World Order."
But at the bottom, the militia movement is about guns - and it is a point-blank rebellion against any form of gun control. To militiamen, the Brady bill and the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons are harbingers of totalitarianism.
So is the bloody debacle of the federal crackdown of the Branck Davidians at Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993. Waco is the militia movement's Alamo. This stance has little or nothing to do with sympathy for Davidian religious beliefs; it is simply shared hatred for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF and the FBI. Eighty-six men, women and children died in the siege, which began with the ATF's bungled attempt to seize the Davidian's guns. To many in the militia movement, the outcome was nothing less than mass murder by the U.S. government.
April 19 now holds huge symbolic significance for movement true believers. In March, a newsletter published by the Militia of Montana ran a little list to stress the importance of that day.
April 19, 1775, was the date of the Battle of Lexington, the newsletter said. April 19, 1992, was the date of an aborted ATF raid on Randy Weaver, a white supremacist whose wife was later shot dead by an FBI sniper during a tense standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
April 19, 1995 was the scheduled date for the execution of Richard Wayne Snell, a white supremacist who, like Weaver, id regarded as a movement "martyr." Snell, convicted of killing a pawnshop operator in Arkansas, was indeed executed some 12 hours after the Oklahoma City bombing - and after cryptically telling his executioners they had "picked a bad day."
We will never know if Snell had some foreknowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing - but it is a fact that many militia members were on high alert in the weeks before the event. In March, numerous Internet messages warned that the ATF and selected U.S. Army units were training at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a massive raid against militia members on March 25. ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said. "The whole thing was ridiculous. There was absolutely no basis for any of that - no such activity was or is being planned."
Nevertheless, a Texas Republican congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman, took the rumors seriously enough to write Janet Reno, warning that a "paramilitary-style attack against Americans" could lead to a "bloody fiasco like Waco." The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, alerted its members to the rumored raid on its own bulletin board, called GUN-Talk.
On March 23, the NRA said it got "no response from either the Justice Department or the Treasury Department" to its inquiries about the rumors, but added that it would monitor the possible "use of excessive force on the part of certain federal agencies." "This appears to be part of a deliberate attempt to promote fear among people who are heavily armed and have already demonstrated paranoia and distrust of government," the ATF's Killorin said.
The chat got worse. On March 23, someone used the Internet to post the full text of "The Terrorist's Handbook," which includes the recipe for making an ammonium-nitrate bomb as well as detailed information on detonators.
On March 26, one Internet user posted this message: "Let's assume that there ARE raids this weekend, and that some people are forced to kill federal agents. They need places to hide and get medical care. They need our support. If something DOES happen, be ready to do what you need to do, travel where you need to travel and help your fellow Americans fight the greatest threat to our liberty yet." Similar messages - some rambling, some fiery - continued to appear during April; by April 19, at least three more "patriots" had posted explicit instructions for making bombs.
Paranoid talk - and even passing out bomb recipes - is not a crime in the United States. But to the extent that it reflects the collective state of mind within the militia movement, the Internet traffic shows the paramilitary right's fundamental estrangement from the national dialogue. Movement members inhabit a world where few members of the establishment are trusted or even heard - a world in which conspiracy theories multiply and never die.
A sample from the 1994 militia publication: "House to house searches and seizures are being conducted without warrants across the land. Troop movement markers (bright colored reflective signs) and U.N. troops are already in place in this country, prepared to engage in 'peace-keeping' against us. Surveillance cameras are in place atop tall light posts along highways…cars are equipped with bar codes and tracking devices…Detention camps are already built…the country has already been divided into ten regions…under martial law."
This sort of nonsense, endlessly repeated on the Internet and on hard-right talk radio shows, creates a climate of opinion that can defeat reality-testing.
Take, for example, the reaction to the Oklahoma City blast itself: to many in the movement, the bombing was staged for the long-awaited crackdown against them.
Norm Resnick, a talk-show host on KHNC in Jamestown, Colo., said "the vast majority" of callers to his show believe the bombing was "a government set-up" and the he himself believes "Clinton will use it" to pass pending counterterrorism legislation and "cancel the Second Amendment," which protects the right to bear arms. Bo Gritz, the flamboyant Vietnam veteran who also has a show on KHNC, called the bombing "a masterpiece of science and art" during a speech in Dallas on Friday. But on KHNC, Gritz speculated that the CIA was responsible.
Other militia leaders quickly distanced themselves from the bombing. In Michigan, where a heavily armed ATF search team last week hunted for two potential suspects, militia leader (and gun-shop owner) Norman Olson denied that the hunted men were members of his group, the Michigan Militia Corps, though he conceded they may have attended some meetings. State police say Olson's unit, which stages parmilitary exercises and claims 10,000 to 12,000 members, has no record of violence. But Olson is something of a maverick.
Last year he stunned many in the secrecy-obsessed movement by publicly appealing for members and allowing reporters to cover some of his group's training sessions. John Trochmann and his nephew Randy, two of the Montana Militia's leaders, also denied complicity in the bombing. "We do not believe in chaos and anarchy," Randy Trachmann said.. Added John: "We're not going to take revenge [for Waco] by killing babies."
The national outrage at last week's slaughter may force other militia groups to renounce violence - but given their history, and given their fondness for military weapons, few cops seem willing to take chances.
Consider the experience of the Fowlerville, Mich., Police Department. Last September, a Fowlerville officer pulled over three young men in camouflage garg who said they were members of the "unauthorized militia" of Michigan. The car held three assault rifles, four pistols, 700 rounds of ammunition, night -vision goggles and a gas mask. Officers also found notes suggesting the trio had been keeping police under surveillance. Charged with weapons violations, the three skipped bail and disappeared. But 40 other militiamen showed up in court and, according to Chief Gary Krause, warned that "the next time you try to take our guns away, we'll shoot you."
No one got shot, and the moral of the story would be that most militia members are just dumb white guys who like to fantasize about guns and guerrilla war. But some aren't bluffing, and the possibility of confrontations with heavily armed militants clearly has some law-enforcement officials worried. In Colorado last week, a federal investigator who monitors militia activity said he hoped to the bitter end that the Oklahoma attack hadn't been the "patriots." If it was, he said, it could mean the big crackdown the movement has been predicting all along - and then, he said, "all hell will break loose."
Newsweek/May 1, 1995
It begins with the Cohen Act, rammed through Congress by liberals bent on eliminating the private ownership of firearms. Jackbooted federal agents go door to door across the country, seizing weapons from law-abiding Americans. Facing what they see as imminent federal dictatorship, a band of white Christian patriots go underground to fight back. Their tactic is terror - building a bomb from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, loading it in a delivery truck and setting it off outside FBI headquarters in Washington. Seven hundred people die - and minutes later, one of the terrorists calls the Washington Post. "White America shall live!" he cries.
This dark fantasy, with it chilling resemblance tot he attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City last week, is among the opening episodes of "The Turner Diaries," a wretched 1978 novel that has long had cult status on the gun-toting far right. Written pseudonymously by a former physics professor and sometime neo-Nazi named William Pierce, the book tells how a group of citizen-geurillas started race war in America, overthrew the government, killed prominent Jews and launched a U.S. nuclear strike on Israel. "As soon as I heard what happened [in Oklahoma City], I just had this gut reaction," said John Nutter of Michigan State University, who follows the paramilitary right. "It's straight out of the 'Turner Diaries'."
Pulp fiction - even rancidly anti-Semitic pulp fiction - is only the beginning of America's crash course on homegrown terrorism. From experts like Nutter, from law-enforcement sources at the state and federal levels - and from right-wing extremists themselves - NEWSWEEK correspondents have assembled a disturbing profile of a secretive, paranoid and profoundly alienated political subculture that may now constitute a threat to law and order.
This sub-culture, whose political genealogy can be traced in part to notorious white-supremacists groups like Aryan Nations, The Order and the Ku Klux Klan, has spawned a nationwide movement of heavily armed "patriot" and "militia" groups that are only loosely connected to each other.
There are no reliable numbers on membership, which is unevenly distributed across more than 30 states, but some say up to 100,000 Americans are involved. And while no one says all - or even most - of these militiamen are turning violent, last week's bombing has clearly shattered the complacency of federal and state authorities. Terrorism, we have learned, is as American as crab grass - and just about as difficult to uproot.
We do not yet know, of course, whether the perpetrators of last week's attack ever read "The Turner Diaries." But we know a lot about the ideology of the patriot/militia movement and about its tendency to take apocalyptic, deeply conspiratorial views of U.S. politics. The federal government and all it seems to stand for is the Enemy.
To some true believers, Washington is simply "the beast," while others, influenced by the anti-Semitic strain in supremacist literature, call it ZOG, for "Zionist Occupation Government." Bill Clinton, Janet Reno and most Democratic politicians are liberal elitists who betray traditional American values. Multinationalism - and any U.S. cooperation with the United Nation - is anathema.
The Federal Reserve Board, and possibly all banks, are financial oppressors; the G-7 economic summits, NAFTA and GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, are evidence of America's gradual surrender to a "New World Order."
But at the bottom, the militia movement is about guns - and it is a point-blank rebellion against any form of gun control. To militiamen, the Brady bill and the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons are harbingers of totalitarianism.
So is the bloody debacle of the federal crackdown of the Branck Davidians at Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993. Waco is the militia movement's Alamo. This stance has little or nothing to do with sympathy for Davidian religious beliefs; it is simply shared hatred for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF and the FBI. Eighty-six men, women and children died in the siege, which began with the ATF's bungled attempt to seize the Davidian's guns. To many in the militia movement, the outcome was nothing less than mass murder by the U.S. government.
April 19 now holds huge symbolic significance for movement true believers. In March, a newsletter published by the Militia of Montana ran a little list to stress the importance of that day.
April 19, 1775, was the date of the Battle of Lexington, the newsletter said. April 19, 1992, was the date of an aborted ATF raid on Randy Weaver, a white supremacist whose wife was later shot dead by an FBI sniper during a tense standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
April 19, 1995 was the scheduled date for the execution of Richard Wayne Snell, a white supremacist who, like Weaver, id regarded as a movement "martyr." Snell, convicted of killing a pawnshop operator in Arkansas, was indeed executed some 12 hours after the Oklahoma City bombing - and after cryptically telling his executioners they had "picked a bad day."
We will never know if Snell had some foreknowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing - but it is a fact that many militia members were on high alert in the weeks before the event. In March, numerous Internet messages warned that the ATF and selected U.S. Army units were training at Fort Bliss, Texas, for a massive raid against militia members on March 25. ATF spokesman Jack Killorin said. "The whole thing was ridiculous. There was absolutely no basis for any of that - no such activity was or is being planned."
Nevertheless, a Texas Republican congressman, Rep. Steve Stockman, took the rumors seriously enough to write Janet Reno, warning that a "paramilitary-style attack against Americans" could lead to a "bloody fiasco like Waco." The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, alerted its members to the rumored raid on its own bulletin board, called GUN-Talk.
On March 23, the NRA said it got "no response from either the Justice Department or the Treasury Department" to its inquiries about the rumors, but added that it would monitor the possible "use of excessive force on the part of certain federal agencies." "This appears to be part of a deliberate attempt to promote fear among people who are heavily armed and have already demonstrated paranoia and distrust of government," the ATF's Killorin said.
The chat got worse. On March 23, someone used the Internet to post the full text of "The Terrorist's Handbook," which includes the recipe for making an ammonium-nitrate bomb as well as detailed information on detonators.
On March 26, one Internet user posted this message: "Let's assume that there ARE raids this weekend, and that some people are forced to kill federal agents. They need places to hide and get medical care. They need our support. If something DOES happen, be ready to do what you need to do, travel where you need to travel and help your fellow Americans fight the greatest threat to our liberty yet." Similar messages - some rambling, some fiery - continued to appear during April; by April 19, at least three more "patriots" had posted explicit instructions for making bombs.
Paranoid talk - and even passing out bomb recipes - is not a crime in the United States. But to the extent that it reflects the collective state of mind within the militia movement, the Internet traffic shows the paramilitary right's fundamental estrangement from the national dialogue. Movement members inhabit a world where few members of the establishment are trusted or even heard - a world in which conspiracy theories multiply and never die.
A sample from the 1994 militia publication: "House to house searches and seizures are being conducted without warrants across the land. Troop movement markers (bright colored reflective signs) and U.N. troops are already in place in this country, prepared to engage in 'peace-keeping' against us. Surveillance cameras are in place atop tall light posts along highways…cars are equipped with bar codes and tracking devices…Detention camps are already built…the country has already been divided into ten regions…under martial law."
This sort of nonsense, endlessly repeated on the Internet and on hard-right talk radio shows, creates a climate of opinion that can defeat reality-testing.
Take, for example, the reaction to the Oklahoma City blast itself: to many in the movement, the bombing was staged for the long-awaited crackdown against them.
Norm Resnick, a talk-show host on KHNC in Jamestown, Colo., said "the vast majority" of callers to his show believe the bombing was "a government set-up" and the he himself believes "Clinton will use it" to pass pending counterterrorism legislation and "cancel the Second Amendment," which protects the right to bear arms. Bo Gritz, the flamboyant Vietnam veteran who also has a show on KHNC, called the bombing "a masterpiece of science and art" during a speech in Dallas on Friday. But on KHNC, Gritz speculated that the CIA was responsible.
Other militia leaders quickly distanced themselves from the bombing. In Michigan, where a heavily armed ATF search team last week hunted for two potential suspects, militia leader (and gun-shop owner) Norman Olson denied that the hunted men were members of his group, the Michigan Militia Corps, though he conceded they may have attended some meetings. State police say Olson's unit, which stages parmilitary exercises and claims 10,000 to 12,000 members, has no record of violence. But Olson is something of a maverick.
Last year he stunned many in the secrecy-obsessed movement by publicly appealing for members and allowing reporters to cover some of his group's training sessions. John Trochmann and his nephew Randy, two of the Montana Militia's leaders, also denied complicity in the bombing. "We do not believe in chaos and anarchy," Randy Trachmann said.. Added John: "We're not going to take revenge [for Waco] by killing babies."
The national outrage at last week's slaughter may force other militia groups to renounce violence - but given their history, and given their fondness for military weapons, few cops seem willing to take chances.
Consider the experience of the Fowlerville, Mich., Police Department. Last September, a Fowlerville officer pulled over three young men in camouflage garg who said they were members of the "unauthorized militia" of Michigan. The car held three assault rifles, four pistols, 700 rounds of ammunition, night -vision goggles and a gas mask. Officers also found notes suggesting the trio had been keeping police under surveillance. Charged with weapons violations, the three skipped bail and disappeared. But 40 other militiamen showed up in court and, according to Chief Gary Krause, warned that "the next time you try to take our guns away, we'll shoot you."
No one got shot, and the moral of the story would be that most militia members are just dumb white guys who like to fantasize about guns and guerrilla war. But some aren't bluffing, and the possibility of confrontations with heavily armed militants clearly has some law-enforcement officials worried. In Colorado last week, a federal investigator who monitors militia activity said he hoped to the bitter end that the Oklahoma attack hadn't been the "patriots." If it was, he said, it could mean the big crackdown the movement has been predicting all along - and then, he said, "all hell will break loose."
Cancel 2018. 3
<-- sched 2, MJ sched 1
C
Cancel4
Guest
Misinterpretationm of the 2nd amendment is deadly.
By Gerard Wright in Denver and Stuart Millar
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 April 1999 11.16 BST
Weirdos, loners, misfits, outcasts. The student population of Columbine high school had no shortage of labels to apply to members of the so-called Trenchcoat Mafia. None, however, implied the scale of violence perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
As America grasped for explanations for their killing spree at a good school in an affluent Colorado suburb, attention was focused last night on the activities and beliefs of the mafia, a group of students who shared a taste for Gothic clothes and bands, and a dislike of their fellow pupils.
After the shootings, dozens of rumours were circulating about the mafia, including claims that they were gay and fixated by death. But while some were untrue, the disturbing picture emerging was of a group isolated from their peers, disaffected by mainstream school society and carrying a victim complex so highly developed that two of its members decided it justified the murder of 13 people.
A tribal system
Columbine high is a school with an academic and sporting reputation as proud as its building is imposing. Engraved on an arch over the entrance is the motto: 'The finest kids in America pass through these halls.' With successful basketball and football teams, and enviable sporting facilities, including tennis courts and two baseball diamonds, the athletic tradition, in particular, is depicted as a source of shared pride among the students and staff.
But last night, pupils told a very different story of life inside the school. Far from being a united, happy bunch, Columbine students operated a fiercely regimented social hierarchy. 'The school was cliquish and extremely divided,' said one former student. 'There was a lot of tension between the groups. It was almost continuous conflict between each one.'
There were the jocks, principally the football team, regarded by the rest as being allowed to operate as a law unto themselves by the school authorities. There were the preppies, the rich kids, despised by their peers because of a perception that they could buy their way through life. There were the skateboard punks, the cool kids envied for their street style.
And, right at the bottom of the food chain, there were the students who could not fit into any of the other groups, the quiet, brooding, intelligent ones.
According to pupils who spoke to the Guardian last night, these pupils were invariably shunned by the other tribes, and frequently bullied, verbally and physically. As a reaction, they formed a clique two years ago and called themselves the Anachronists. But it was the derogatory label given to them by the jocks because of their habit of wearing long black trench coats whatever the weather, indoors and out, which stuck: the Trenchcoat Mafia.
Although members of the clique are generally the brighter students, they hold bizarre beliefs to signify their rejection of mainstream society. In their yearbook entry, 13 students described themselves as members beside the message: 'Who says insanity is crazy? Insanity is healthy.'
For many that has not gone beyond a teenage fascination with the occult, but for the more extreme members, it includes an obsession with guns, mutilation, death and Hitler born out of strong neo-Nazi sympathies. Members often wear T-shirts with far-right insignia. 'They're into Nazis,' said a student who asked not to be named. 'They take pride in Hitler. They're really, really creepy.'
The killers
Within this clique, Harris and Klebold remained slightly aloof from the rest, and were regarded as holding the most extreme views.
Matt Good, a friend of Harris, said that during the past year Harris had started wearing all black, spoke German, and was obsessed with anything German or about the second world war.
Other local people said the two teenagers often wore black, Gothic-like clothing, and targeted minorities and student athletes. At school they were known as two people best avoided, people who could easily turn violent.
'It is shocking, but I can believe it,' said Laura Stewart, 18, who was in a French class with Klebold. 'He did not behave well in classes. He was very disrespectful to the teacher, and he would never listen to anybody.'
Nicole Dickey, 15, who was in the school cafeteria when the pair burst in, said Klebold was volatile. 'A friend had a hunch it would be Dylan. He was quiet, but he sometimes lost his temper,' she said.
Mike Vendegnia, 18, a Columbine senior not at school on Tuesday, said he played fantasy baseball with Klebold and added: 'He was into guns and stuff like that, but he was pretty nice to me. We'd talk and joke around.'
But in the streets where they lived their reputation was very different. Neighbours described Harris and Klebold as quiet. One said Klebold was a gifted and talented student who also took part in a fantasy baseball league.
Klebold and Harris also were enrolled in an early morning tenpin bowling class. Neighbours said the Harris family moved in about two years ago and the boy's father, Wayne, had recently retired from the military.
Klebold's parents 'are good friends of ours, but they've never mentioned that he was any problem at all,' said one neighbour who asked not to be named. She said Klebold attended Columbine, instead of Chatfield high school, where most local children went, because he was gifted and talented, and added: 'He's a very bright kid, and it's a very nice family.'
The Internet
The internet site set up by Harris offers a chilling insight into the beliefs of the more extreme members of the Trenchcoat Mafia. On it, he refers to a chilling day to come, which he names NBK. Last night that was being taken as Natural Born Killers.
Elsewhere, there are descriptions of how to make pipe bombs, which he praised as 'some of the easiest and deadliest ways to kill a group of people'. Shrapnel, he said was very important if you want to kill people in large numbers.
Central to the Trenchcoat Mafia's identity was their association with 'dark metal' Goth music. On his website, Harris published the lyrics of a song by a German anarchist band Kein Mehrheit fur Die Mitleid - no sympathy for the majority. The first line of the song goes 'What I don't do I don't like. What I don't like I waste.'
But their current favourite pin-up was shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, who has courted controversy throughout his musical career. One song, Antichrist Superstar, contains the lyrics: 'The moon has now eclipsed the sun, the angel has spread its wings, the time has come for bitter things'.
It goes on: 'The time has come it is quite clear, our antichrist is almost here... it is done.'
Another of the band's songs, Mechanical Animals, includes the words: 'And I was a hand grenade that never stopped exploding. You were automatic and as hollow as the 'o' in god.' The song ends with: 'This isn't me, I'm not mechanical, I'm just a boy playing the suicide king.'
The band's official Internet site gives details to fans about hidden tracks and backward messages, often used to carry satanic influences. One claim is that a Manson song called The Beautiful People contains the words 'I'm evil, believe it' when part of the tune is played backwards. Another song called Long Hard Road out of Hell contains the line: 'Live like a teenage Christ. I'm a saint, got a date with suicide.'
By Gerard Wright in Denver and Stuart Millar
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 April 1999 11.16 BST
Weirdos, loners, misfits, outcasts. The student population of Columbine high school had no shortage of labels to apply to members of the so-called Trenchcoat Mafia. None, however, implied the scale of violence perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
As America grasped for explanations for their killing spree at a good school in an affluent Colorado suburb, attention was focused last night on the activities and beliefs of the mafia, a group of students who shared a taste for Gothic clothes and bands, and a dislike of their fellow pupils.
After the shootings, dozens of rumours were circulating about the mafia, including claims that they were gay and fixated by death. But while some were untrue, the disturbing picture emerging was of a group isolated from their peers, disaffected by mainstream school society and carrying a victim complex so highly developed that two of its members decided it justified the murder of 13 people.
A tribal system
Columbine high is a school with an academic and sporting reputation as proud as its building is imposing. Engraved on an arch over the entrance is the motto: 'The finest kids in America pass through these halls.' With successful basketball and football teams, and enviable sporting facilities, including tennis courts and two baseball diamonds, the athletic tradition, in particular, is depicted as a source of shared pride among the students and staff.
But last night, pupils told a very different story of life inside the school. Far from being a united, happy bunch, Columbine students operated a fiercely regimented social hierarchy. 'The school was cliquish and extremely divided,' said one former student. 'There was a lot of tension between the groups. It was almost continuous conflict between each one.'
There were the jocks, principally the football team, regarded by the rest as being allowed to operate as a law unto themselves by the school authorities. There were the preppies, the rich kids, despised by their peers because of a perception that they could buy their way through life. There were the skateboard punks, the cool kids envied for their street style.
And, right at the bottom of the food chain, there were the students who could not fit into any of the other groups, the quiet, brooding, intelligent ones.
According to pupils who spoke to the Guardian last night, these pupils were invariably shunned by the other tribes, and frequently bullied, verbally and physically. As a reaction, they formed a clique two years ago and called themselves the Anachronists. But it was the derogatory label given to them by the jocks because of their habit of wearing long black trench coats whatever the weather, indoors and out, which stuck: the Trenchcoat Mafia.
Although members of the clique are generally the brighter students, they hold bizarre beliefs to signify their rejection of mainstream society. In their yearbook entry, 13 students described themselves as members beside the message: 'Who says insanity is crazy? Insanity is healthy.'
For many that has not gone beyond a teenage fascination with the occult, but for the more extreme members, it includes an obsession with guns, mutilation, death and Hitler born out of strong neo-Nazi sympathies. Members often wear T-shirts with far-right insignia. 'They're into Nazis,' said a student who asked not to be named. 'They take pride in Hitler. They're really, really creepy.'
The killers
Within this clique, Harris and Klebold remained slightly aloof from the rest, and were regarded as holding the most extreme views.
Matt Good, a friend of Harris, said that during the past year Harris had started wearing all black, spoke German, and was obsessed with anything German or about the second world war.
Other local people said the two teenagers often wore black, Gothic-like clothing, and targeted minorities and student athletes. At school they were known as two people best avoided, people who could easily turn violent.
'It is shocking, but I can believe it,' said Laura Stewart, 18, who was in a French class with Klebold. 'He did not behave well in classes. He was very disrespectful to the teacher, and he would never listen to anybody.'
Nicole Dickey, 15, who was in the school cafeteria when the pair burst in, said Klebold was volatile. 'A friend had a hunch it would be Dylan. He was quiet, but he sometimes lost his temper,' she said.
Mike Vendegnia, 18, a Columbine senior not at school on Tuesday, said he played fantasy baseball with Klebold and added: 'He was into guns and stuff like that, but he was pretty nice to me. We'd talk and joke around.'
But in the streets where they lived their reputation was very different. Neighbours described Harris and Klebold as quiet. One said Klebold was a gifted and talented student who also took part in a fantasy baseball league.
Klebold and Harris also were enrolled in an early morning tenpin bowling class. Neighbours said the Harris family moved in about two years ago and the boy's father, Wayne, had recently retired from the military.
Klebold's parents 'are good friends of ours, but they've never mentioned that he was any problem at all,' said one neighbour who asked not to be named. She said Klebold attended Columbine, instead of Chatfield high school, where most local children went, because he was gifted and talented, and added: 'He's a very bright kid, and it's a very nice family.'
The Internet
The internet site set up by Harris offers a chilling insight into the beliefs of the more extreme members of the Trenchcoat Mafia. On it, he refers to a chilling day to come, which he names NBK. Last night that was being taken as Natural Born Killers.
Elsewhere, there are descriptions of how to make pipe bombs, which he praised as 'some of the easiest and deadliest ways to kill a group of people'. Shrapnel, he said was very important if you want to kill people in large numbers.
Central to the Trenchcoat Mafia's identity was their association with 'dark metal' Goth music. On his website, Harris published the lyrics of a song by a German anarchist band Kein Mehrheit fur Die Mitleid - no sympathy for the majority. The first line of the song goes 'What I don't do I don't like. What I don't like I waste.'
But their current favourite pin-up was shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, who has courted controversy throughout his musical career. One song, Antichrist Superstar, contains the lyrics: 'The moon has now eclipsed the sun, the angel has spread its wings, the time has come for bitter things'.
It goes on: 'The time has come it is quite clear, our antichrist is almost here... it is done.'
Another of the band's songs, Mechanical Animals, includes the words: 'And I was a hand grenade that never stopped exploding. You were automatic and as hollow as the 'o' in god.' The song ends with: 'This isn't me, I'm not mechanical, I'm just a boy playing the suicide king.'
The band's official Internet site gives details to fans about hidden tracks and backward messages, often used to carry satanic influences. One claim is that a Manson song called The Beautiful People contains the words 'I'm evil, believe it' when part of the tune is played backwards. Another song called Long Hard Road out of Hell contains the line: 'Live like a teenage Christ. I'm a saint, got a date with suicide.'
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The gun in America ‘reeks of white power’ and is historically tied to romantic tales of ‘white frontier heroes and valiant Southern plantation owners rescuing their white daughters from the hands of black predators’.
Burbick’s explicit reference to Birth of a Nation (1915) fits into a chain of American cinematic imagery and icons of masculinity, from Buffalo Bill Cody through Charlton Heston and Ronald Reagan to Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who subsequently act as cultural reference points for the social and political values of the gun (the phallic symbolism being taken as a given).
The usual suspects predictably emerge as Burbick links the fantasies and mythology of the Western frontier to the white, male, right-wing gun advocates who fervently perceive their right to the Second Amendment (or, at least, to their interpretation of the Second Amendment) as a stonewall 'litmus test for their democracy’.
Somewhat at odds with the notion of a ‘gun show nation’, the militia groups, gun enthusiasts and National Rifle Association (NRA) members tend to fall under a familiar demographic of middle-aged and aging white men, based predominantly in the mid-West and Western United States, whose politics – we are told – are shaped primarily by paranoia and fear.
The American nation as a whole is not necessarily obsessed with guns – rather, the gun is a ‘political fetish’ that operates as a potent, though increasingly outmoded, cultural symbol of white male power.
Race and gender issues are frequently used to help explain the darker side of the political identity associated with gun ownership, and there is even a thinly diluted sense of irony when Burbick briefly recounts the statistics for gun fatalities – finding suicidal white men over fifty-five (a key demographic in the pro-gun camp) to be amongst the most vulnerable.
While such a self-destructive impulse can be used to counteract the logic of ‘the right to bear arms’ as a means of self-defense, it also hints at a significant shortcoming of Gun Show Nation.
In seeking to answer the question of why Americans are so obsessed with guns, Burbick fails to address the issue of high school and college shootings, preferring instead the soft, flabby target of aging white guys who still think of Charlton Heston as Moses.
Burbick also seems caught, at times, between wanting to express an enthused journalistic sort of reportage and having to hold back, assuming the more distanced analytical stance of the professional academic.
It would be interesting to read a more controversial, outspoken polemic on gun culture – especially Hunter S. Thompson’s unpublished manuscript on the gun lobby, written amidst the turbulent politics of the late 1960s, which threatened to discuss (from a gun freak’s point of view) how the NRA uses its members rather than representing them.
Nevertheless, while not startlingly original or revelatory, Gun Show Nation delivers a compelling and accessible analysis of the symbiotic relationship between American gun culture and Second Amendment identity politics.
http://www.americansc.org.uk/Reviews/Gunshow.htm
Burbick’s explicit reference to Birth of a Nation (1915) fits into a chain of American cinematic imagery and icons of masculinity, from Buffalo Bill Cody through Charlton Heston and Ronald Reagan to Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who subsequently act as cultural reference points for the social and political values of the gun (the phallic symbolism being taken as a given).
The usual suspects predictably emerge as Burbick links the fantasies and mythology of the Western frontier to the white, male, right-wing gun advocates who fervently perceive their right to the Second Amendment (or, at least, to their interpretation of the Second Amendment) as a stonewall 'litmus test for their democracy’.
Somewhat at odds with the notion of a ‘gun show nation’, the militia groups, gun enthusiasts and National Rifle Association (NRA) members tend to fall under a familiar demographic of middle-aged and aging white men, based predominantly in the mid-West and Western United States, whose politics – we are told – are shaped primarily by paranoia and fear.
The American nation as a whole is not necessarily obsessed with guns – rather, the gun is a ‘political fetish’ that operates as a potent, though increasingly outmoded, cultural symbol of white male power.
Race and gender issues are frequently used to help explain the darker side of the political identity associated with gun ownership, and there is even a thinly diluted sense of irony when Burbick briefly recounts the statistics for gun fatalities – finding suicidal white men over fifty-five (a key demographic in the pro-gun camp) to be amongst the most vulnerable.
While such a self-destructive impulse can be used to counteract the logic of ‘the right to bear arms’ as a means of self-defense, it also hints at a significant shortcoming of Gun Show Nation.
In seeking to answer the question of why Americans are so obsessed with guns, Burbick fails to address the issue of high school and college shootings, preferring instead the soft, flabby target of aging white guys who still think of Charlton Heston as Moses.
Burbick also seems caught, at times, between wanting to express an enthused journalistic sort of reportage and having to hold back, assuming the more distanced analytical stance of the professional academic.
It would be interesting to read a more controversial, outspoken polemic on gun culture – especially Hunter S. Thompson’s unpublished manuscript on the gun lobby, written amidst the turbulent politics of the late 1960s, which threatened to discuss (from a gun freak’s point of view) how the NRA uses its members rather than representing them.
Nevertheless, while not startlingly original or revelatory, Gun Show Nation delivers a compelling and accessible analysis of the symbiotic relationship between American gun culture and Second Amendment identity politics.
http://www.americansc.org.uk/Reviews/Gunshow.htm
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Apr 19, 1775. A day we should all be proud of, when patriots fought tyranny with their rightfully owned and unregistered firearms.
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That Americans need guns to protect themselves from their government is a paranoid fallacy.
A gun allows you to project deadly force, which must feel exhilarating if you feel small and impotent.
Can you remember the last time a psychopathic loner blew up his classroom with a homemade bomb? Or poisoned the soup? They are always obsessed with guns.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...n-loner-wanted-to-kill-obama-115875-21254583/
A gun allows you to project deadly force, which must feel exhilarating if you feel small and impotent.
Can you remember the last time a psychopathic loner blew up his classroom with a homemade bomb? Or poisoned the soup? They are always obsessed with guns.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-st...n-loner-wanted-to-kill-obama-115875-21254583/
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Why should other nations have gun control and the United States be the country that is out of control?
It makes no sense when poll after poll indicates the majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982920,00.html
It makes no sense when poll after poll indicates the majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982920,00.html
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the second amemdment gives the government the right to keep and bear arms and form militias and the people shall not infringe upon that right
yours truly,
DNC
yours truly,
DNC
SmarterthanYou
rebel
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All you have is Heller.
Heller’s lawsuit against DC was initially dismissed as it should have been, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, packed with neo-cons, overturned that ruling.
That ruling contravened decades of jurisprudence that held the Second Amendment right was exclusive to militias.
President Obama's Supreme Court nominations will reverse the aberration.
Count on it.
Heller’s lawsuit against DC was initially dismissed as it should have been, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, packed with neo-cons, overturned that ruling.
That ruling contravened decades of jurisprudence that held the Second Amendment right was exclusive to militias.
President Obama's Supreme Court nominations will reverse the aberration.
Count on it.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
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What goes around comes around.
The works of William Blackstone, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and similarly worded legislation passed in the late 18th century, not 1903.
The text and history of the Second Amendment conclusively refutes the notion that it entitles individuals to have guns for their own private purposes.
There is no suggestion that the need to protect private uses of weapons against federal intrusion ever animated the adoption of the Second Amendment.
The works of William Blackstone, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and similarly worded legislation passed in the late 18th century, not 1903.
The text and history of the Second Amendment conclusively refutes the notion that it entitles individuals to have guns for their own private purposes.
There is no suggestion that the need to protect private uses of weapons against federal intrusion ever animated the adoption of the Second Amendment.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
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You gunlovers are arming drug cartels, you know.
ABC News –
“U.S. gun stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexico's ruthless drug cartels”
USA Today –
“On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visit Mexico to discuss ways to stop the smuggling of American weapons, which Mexico says account for 90% of confiscated arms here.”
CNN –
“...there are at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.”
San Francisco Chronicle / Los Angeles Times –
“More than 90 percent of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."
ABC News –
“U.S. gun stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexico's ruthless drug cartels”
USA Today –
“On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visit Mexico to discuss ways to stop the smuggling of American weapons, which Mexico says account for 90% of confiscated arms here.”
CNN –
“...there are at least 6,600 U.S. gun shops within 100 miles of the Mexican border and more than 90 percent of weapons in Mexico come from the United States.”
San Francisco Chronicle / Los Angeles Times –
“More than 90 percent of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."
William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."
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Speaking of laughs....