Enforcers Count on Provoking Low-Hanging Fruit to Advance a Discrediting Narrative

With all this talk about lockstep and leverage and force multipliers, it’ll be interesting to find out how much of the chatter was internet tiger talk before the feds got involved and started offering “suggestions.” (FBI/Facebook)

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “FBI: Militia group planned to kidnap Gov. Whitmer & overthrow government,” an Oct. 8 NBC 25 News report headlined. “According to court documents, the alleged plot involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia.”

More “rightwing extremists,” eh? Just the kind we’re told “rank as the top terrorist threats,” more than violent Islamists, more than Antifa, more than Marxist-founded BLM…

The DHS says its “white supremacists.” FBI head honcho Christopher Wray agrees, telling the House Homeland Security Committee:

“Within the domestic terrorism bucket, the category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is, I think, the biggest bucket within that larger group. And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that.”

Some of us tried telling people anybody who used the same language as Richard Blumenthal on guns was a hiring mistake.

The message, bottom line, if you listen to Democrats, is that Republicans are racists. That’s what voters are hearing in louder and more shrill tones as the election approaches.

So we see claims like:

I could do this all day, but you get the point. And the voting public gets a similar message from those yard signs Democrats are putting up next to campaign signs proclaiming “Hate has no home here.” The implication is that hate resides in all those homes with Trump/Pence signs that don’t put racial virtue signaling on display. After all, “Silence is violence.” And don’t get ‘em started on signs that appropriately counter “Socialism has no home here.”

The thing is, on seeing the NBC headline, my first thought was “Way to let CIs and provocateurs prompt you into helping generate narrative-bolstering headlines and making a tyrant look like a victim!” Sure enough, within moments, I’d posted an “update” link to an Ohio Capital Journal reporter’s tweet confirming “15 people met in Dublin, Ohio, including a FBI informant…”

And then we find “At Least Two of Gretchen Whitmer’s Kidnapping Conspirators Appear to Be Anti-Trump Anarchists” and “BLM Supporter Tied to Michigan Gov. Whitmer Kidnapping Plot.”

An as-yet-unknown number of infiltrators/informers/provocateurs managed to talk some low-hanging fruit (communicating on social media!) into making potentially incriminating statements and plans and then swooped in just in time to save the day and garner headlines to scare the cud-chewers.

Where have we seen overreactions before?

How about in the Hutaree case where the feds were willing to destroy lives and ride the publicity for all it was worth over violence conspiracy charges that turned out to be legally unfounded? How about in the Malheur “takeover”?

“Your FBI Will Entrap You,” Angelo M. Codevilla, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute and professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University, concludes in an American Greatness analysis of the Whitmer case where he predicts no jury will convict if it comes to trial. “Is the nation’s top law enforcement agency protecting society from sociopaths or is the bureau itself sociopathic? Evidence and experience suggest the latter.”

It’s safer and easier going after low-hanging fruit for dramatic headlines than it is infiltrating the really bad actors. And that brings us to a dilemma of sorts since our government wants nothing to do with its obligation to equip and train “the Militia of the several States” and since armed citizens training in concert with each other in anticipation of emergencies, disasters and potential social breakdown are ripe for infiltration by confidential informants and provocateurs, just looking for someone to say something stupid or plan something stupider.

I’m reminded of a response I gave a contact over 20 years ago on our old GunTruths site, asking “Is there any organization of armed citizens?  And if there is some loose organization, will people actually move to snipe a government leader gone awry?”

Unfortunately, my correspondent did not appreciate being told:

For all I know, you are an ATF agent trolling for loose-lipped idiots. And for all you know, GunTruths is an elaborate snare set out to identify enemies of the state.

So what are we to do?

Some states have laws on “private militias,” so it is incumbent on citizens to know what they are. That said, there are workarounds to allow for group training and to hone skills, and being savvy to avoid entrapment is critical. Don’t say stupid stuff. Don’t plan stupid stuff. Even if you think you know everyone, you can’t forget that some individuals may find themselves entrapped and offered deals to play Judas. The best policy is to treat suggestions to initiate plots the same way an FFL would handle a “buyer” asking them about workarounds to machinegun laws.

It’s codified in the late Mike Vanderboegh’s “Three Percent Catechism,” where “we are bound by an ironclad commitment to no first use of force.” Read it and absorb it. Disagree if you like, but then don’t be surprised to see your name in the papers. That some of these (alleged) violence-planning plucked fruits called themselves “Michigan III%ers” just shows that like so many who do the same, they have no idea what the founder of the concept had in mind, something that concerned Vanderboegh and that he tried his best to make clear before he died. (Hell, many so-called “Three Percenters” have never heard of Mike and the websites they frequent make no mention of him.)

The Founders themselves acknowledged “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” That’s not cowardice, and you’ll note the door swings both ways, as evidenced by the absence of widespread confiscation directives. Even the most rabid gun-grabbers aren’t trying that (yet) because they don’t dare. Even though pressed and battered, the ultimate deterrent of the Second Amendment is yet working as intended.

If and when the “long train of abuses” reaches a junction where we have lost all other means of redress and tyranny has become so insufferable as to warrant resistance, you’ll know. Taking yourself off the board before then will do no one any good, least of all you and those who depend on you.

Don’t be that low-hanging fruit, playing into the hands of those who, when they perceive the time is right, would offer no alternatives but surrender or be destroyed.


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea

24 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Arizona

I suspect the FBI employed its usual tactics of inciting the crime, offering technical support, knowledge, planning and resources via an undercover agent to entrap them. Left to themselves, they’d probably never move past the complaining stage and onto planning. In either case, they didn’t commit a crime nor cause anyone harm.

Off topic- two weeks till the election. So get those last minute replacement parts, springs, magazines, and any ammo you can find. It will be crazy in the weeks after the election, no matter who wins.

Last edited 3 years ago by Arizona
Arizona

Thanks, Will.

Last edited 3 years ago by Arizona
Tionico

Recently was a vid of a guy who had bought some slow burn cannon fuse, then a coule weeks later from somewhere else a couple small cans of black powder, then a few weeks later ATF came and paid a visit asking about WHY? He said something inane like “for personal use”, “I’ve had black powder firearms since I was a kid”. Two weeks later he was driving in town and an :ordinalry looking” car pulled up next him at a traffic light, the guy in the right rolled down his window and asked if he wanted to buy some… Read more »

Larry

He had acquired a legal golf-ball cannon and wanted to fire it.

American Patriot

5 minutes after Trumps re-election:
1 Fire FBI Director Christopher Wray
2 Fire Dr. Anthony Fauci

GUNS r US

3 Fire AG Bill Barr
4 Fire the rest and start over!

hippybiker

As a true example of the Oxymoron “l’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. FEMA came in and cut all communication lines. That included all Police and Public service radios. They controlled communications. The only way any information went in or out to anyone except FEMA was through guys like me. Amateur radio operators! I used to belong to ARES and RACEs for my County. Now FEMA has come in and usurped local county control. This is what the government does and this is why we need… Read more »

Tionico

something lie tha thas been brewing in Clackamas and Multnomah Counties in Oregon. Search and Rescue are fighting against a move to be folded into some state agency that will hog tie them as they want to continue their superb track record of being autonomous AND very efective. Those hardworking and dedicated folks have intevrened and saved quite a number of lives over the years I’ve followed them.

Mack

Sadly, David, it’s all misdirection.

It is dangerous when subversives operate WITHIN our government.

RoyD

It is hard to believe that one of our most notorious subversives wrote this:

“Arnold was in the West Indies when the Boston Massacre took place on 5 March 1770. He wrote that he was “very much shocked” and wondered “good God, are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their liberties, or are they all turned philosophers, that they don’t take immediate vengeance on such miscreants?””

There is nothing so dangerous as a human who feels that they have been scorned.

Last edited 3 years ago by RoyD
Knute

Lots about Benedict Arnold comes into focus if one reads deeper into the story than the elementary level we were all provided with, courtesy of the State. Does official punishishment for saving the day and turning defeat into victory at Saratoga count as only “feeling” scorned… or actually BEING scorned, officially?

RoyD

My point by using the word “feeling” is that when someone feels something it may or may not be based on evidence. But that doesn’t matter to that person because it is burned into their soul and there is no convincing them otherwise even if it is not so. The old saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”, is true because they run almost entirely on “feelings” so it is a double whammy.

Mack

Unless the evil is purged, it will only get worse.

Last edited 3 years ago by Mack
grifhunter

Brilliant article. Appreciated. Too bad its going over the heads of the ding a lings on this site.

Tionico

quote: For all I know, you are an ATF agent trolling for loose-lipped idiots. And for all you know, GunTruths is an elaborate snare set out to identify enemies of the state.

Whether the target of those words WAS in fact a Judas, or otherwise, it is still genius. It would expose and call out anyone who was, and put any other weak ones on notice that such stuff is NOT the way things work around here.

Excellent

Don

Although such groups have always interested me, when I talked with members I always figured half the members were ATF and FBI agents. The gettogethers sounded like fun with plenty of firearms training and field craft. It’s just who could you trust, even if your motives were pure? Weaver was set up by ATF. Waco had infiltrators. The Bundy clan’s followers had infiltrators. Each of those people or groups had done stupid things to bring attention to themselves. That did nothing more than embolden the feds to take action, right or wrong.

JPM

Apparently it is okay to burn, loot, kill and destroy so long as you are doing it in the name of liberalism (Antifa & BLM) and the FBI and JTTF won’t do a damn thing, but God help you if you are a patriot and conservative and advocate anything, including just having a conversation about applying some real justice against any elected Democrat or against any corrupt government officials.

Dave

The problem nowadays is if you have a “militia” meeting of 30 men five will be FBI,and five will be FBI informers.They want so bad for the lie of white supremacists as the NO.1 terrorist threat they will do anything to prove it.Be careful.

Dave in Fairfax

Dave,

I don’t know how old you are, but back when there was a “joke” amongst the non-communist Russians.

When 4 men sit at table to discuss revolution, 3 are KGB, 1 is fool.

Last edited 3 years ago by Dave in Fairfax
Neanderthal75

@Dave in Fairfax,

Having been trained as an historian in modern Russian-Soviet history and modern African history, my two favorite quotes are:

1. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Beria.

2. “It does not matter who votes. What matters is who counts the votes.” Stalin.

Given the modern Democrat Party platform, Joe Biden’s running mate, and his anti-gun Czar, the first should give us great pause, and considering mail in balloting, the second must assuredly should give us pause.

Cheers from the Oil Patch in Central WY

StreetSweeper

Efrem Zimbalist jr. was never corrupt, then again he wasn’t a real F.B.I. agent either.

Mack

Epilogue:

I’m not ‘Special’ —

I just play one on TV.

“A Quinn Martin Production”

PMinFl

Sounds like entrapment to me and to any free thinking person.

Larry

It’s codified in the late Mike Vanderboegh’s “Three Percent Catechism,” where “we are bound by an ironclad commitment to no first use of force. That just moves the requisite conflict into the philosophical realm and makes it entirely “he said, she said.” “Stay home and keep your business closed or we will send men with guns to throw you in jail” — is that a “use of force,” or isn’t it? And since a man who provokes an physical first use of force over it by being dragged off to jail is thereby put out of circulation, are others justified… Read more »