“NOT on our watch” is the official slogan and guns are the weapon of choice for worked up Americans taking the fight against homegrown terror into their own hands.
Across the country, paranoid citizens armed with assault rifles and American flags are forming their own militia and volunteering their services at postings that could be susceptible to a terror attack.
The gun-toting Average Joes are gathering outside recruitment centres for servicemen and women in an effort to ‘protect’ people they see as vulnerable to an attack by someone who is against the US’s military efforts.
Their presence is a response to the attack last week in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where four marines and a sailor were killed in an attack described as “a horrible, horrible massacre”.
The gunman, a naturalised US citizen born in Kuwait, died in a shootout with police.
Fearing another attack, the mostly middle-aged men are standing guard at recruitment centres in states including Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire, Alabama, Ohio and Kentucky.
They call themselves the Oath Keepers and their mandate is simple: disobey orders from anybody, including the government, if they believe the orders violate their constitutional rights. One of those rights is to bear arms.
Clint Janney, 38, is an Oath Keeper.
Wearing a 9mm handgun on his hip, the garage door company owner told the Associated Press: “We’re here to serve and protect”.
“What the government won’t do, we will do.”
Most of the self-appointed peace keepers carry their weapons in plain sight. But in open carry states — states where it is legal to carry a gun as long as it’s in plain view — that is nothing out of the ordinary.
Scott, a civilian who wished not to be named, paraded back and forth outside an Air Force recruiting centre in Colorado Springs. He looks every part the military presence but is not a member of the armed forces.
He wears jeans and a blue T-shirt but that’s where the everyday attire ends. Over the top he wears a bullet proof vest, a camouflage cap and a balaclava over his nose and mouth. A handgun rests in a holster on his right leg and in his left hand he carries an assault rifle.
In New Hampshire, gun-shop owner Brian Blackden holds a sniper rifle and a handgun in broad daylight. Others, according to local news reports, stood nearby by holding AK-47 rifles.
Police don’t seem to mind. Some even deliver well wishes, snacks and bottles of water to the men, AP reports.
Civilians are standing guard. Picture: Eric Schultz/AL.com via AP Source: AP
Jim Warren salutes during a memorial held for Marine Skip Wells who was killed when gunman Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez opened fire on a military recruiting centre in Chattanooga. Picture: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images Source: AFP
Blackden spoke with The Daily Beast next to a sign declaring “We’re at war.”
“We need to prove to the bad guys that not only are you fighting our military, you’re fighting us, the people of this country,” he said.
His mission, like that of other armed citizens, is to send a message to home grown terrorists and to policy makers.
He wants men and women working and training at recruiting centres to be armed, a measure the US military says will lead to more problems.
“These people are putting on the uniform to protect you and me, yet they don’t have the weapons necessary to protect themselves,” Blackden said.
“They’re fish in a barrel.”
President of the Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes agreed. He told AP it was “insane” that members of the public were doing the job of the US military.
“They’d be better off if they were walking down the streets of Baghdad, because at least in Baghdad, they could move. Here, they’re stationary.”
The measures are supposed to make people feel more secure but are expected to make already paranoid Americans even more paranoid. They coincide with a military exercise in Texas dubbed Jade Helm 15 involving federal and foreign troops that has locals spooked.
The governor of Texas has mobilised his National Guard to keep a “wary eye” on proceedings.
The scariest part for Texans? The theory that the exercise is a pretext to occupy America’s largest state and confiscate people’s guns.
Carol Schumacher, an artist whose property backs on to Camp Swift, a large Army National Guard base in Texas, said it is not the US military that should be feared.
“I think (the conspiracy theorists) are crazy,” she told the Washington Post.
“I’m more worried about them taking over.”
see more at news.com.au
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