City of Charlottesville Sues “Militia” Screwballs
Remember our reporting about the “militia” group American Freedom Keepers who waltzed into Little Cambodia last month with a racist motorcycle club, running out FEMA and other workers and declaring themselves in charge? Remember how we wrote about how gun crazies often try to recast themselves as dewy-eyed do-gooders when their gun-slinging gets them into a world of trouble?
Welp, things are not going well for AFK, as they’ve been named in a lawsuit filed by the City of Charlottesville and others for the riots that they made worse by their gun toting presence in August. AFK was named among other groups, especially the one that calls themselves the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, a bunch of gun nuts from Latrobe Pennsylvania led by “Colonel” Christian Yingling (yeah, sure), whose image was all over the media that weekend declaring himself and his crowd in charge.
The filing is pretty clear and certainly damning of the actions of our friends and the other private militia groups who decided to take over “peacekeeping” (translation: protecting violent racists) at the time. NOW, instead of begging for money to burnish their image for their “charity” work in Texas, they get to beg for money for lawyers. They’re calling themselves the Charlotte 32 as if they’re some poor persecuted group of innocents. They also love themselves some Latin. Their new motto copied from Wikipedia is Si vis pacem, para bellum, which translates roughly to “If you want peace, prepare for war”. It seems like a pretty silly motto, being that they started the war in Charlottesville by showing up and trying to take over.
You can bet they’re pretty worried, too. The lawsuit states:
“In language that dates back to the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, Article I, Section 13 of the Virginia Constitution provides that “in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” A section of the Virginia Code is dedicated to prohibiting “unlawful paramilitary activity,” as specified therein. See Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-433.2. And another state statute forbids falsely assuming the functions of any peace officer or law-enforcement officer. See id. § 18.2-174.”
Oh, and it gets better:
“As the United States Supreme Court has long recognized, ‘Military organization and military drill . . . are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law.’ And for good reason: ‘[T]he proliferation of private military organizations threatens to result in lawlessness and destructive chaos.'”
That lawlessness certainly happened in Charlottesville with one death and many injured. This suit makes for pretty juicy reading for 79 pages. Among other things, the City of Charlottesville seeks injunctive relief to keep these dangerous screwballs out of Charlottesville in an effort to take their city back from racists and weirdos.
And it’s not a moment too soon.