California militias prepare for disaster

CASEY MINER: I’m going to break a radio rule here. I’m going to play you something, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. Instead, see if you can guess. 

VOICE: I got an enemy. Phil. Hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. Cover, cover, cover.

Here’s a hint. We’re in a hot, dusty valley, surrounded by hills. There are about thirty guys gathered in small groups, wearing army fatigues and heavy boots and carrying rifles. They’re poring over maps, and glancing up at the ridge above them. 

VOICE: They are up here. Keep your eyes open.

If you’re starting to think we’re in a battle zone, you’re right. Sort of. These guys are dressed for war, but they’re not in the military. And the ridge is enemy territory, but the enemy is a group of cardboard cutouts, painted black, and shaped kind of like the “men's” symbol on bathroom doors.

VOICE: Bay Area squad, I hear you loud and clear, we’re moving.

Welcome to training day with the Northern California State Militia. It’s a volunteer group of about 125 people, divided into nine squads and spread all over this part of the state, including the Bay Area. Once a month, they get together in the hills about an hour northwest of Sacramento, and they train, military-style. Founder Roy McCarty says they’re preparing for disaster situations like floods, fires and earthquakes. 

ROY MCCARTY: You would find a lot of chaos going on, residents of an area that are affected that want to do something, but they don’t know what to do. We would try to train people from the different areas to take charge and direct relief efforts, rescue efforts, maintain security for their property, for their neighborhood, from looters. 

McCarty founded the group two years ago. He’s a Vietnam veteran who lives outside Sacramento with his wife and two dogs – two little pugs. When I visited, the house was covered with Easter decorations. He said to me, "What did you expect, an American flag and a table full of guns?"

MCCARTY: We support law enforcement. We support our military. And want to be there to back them up. They’re primary, we’re secondary. We want to come in, tell us what you want. They show up on scene and say, we’re in charge, great, we’ll do whatever you say, we’ll just fall in behind you. But if they’re not there yet, we would be ones to hold the ground till they get there. 

We’ve heard a lot lately about militias all over the country. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is a nonprofit that keeps track, there are literally hundreds of militias, and new ones are forming all the time. In terms of what they’re actually doing, there’s a range. There are groups like the Minutemen patrolling the border. Or the Hutaree, the Christian militia, whose members the FBI recently arrested in Michigan. Some groups, like the Oath Keepers, say they’d be willing to take up arms against the government. Others, like McCarty’s group, say they’re more interested in self-sufficiency and disaster preparedness. They talk a lot about Hurricane Katrina, or what would happen if the Big One finally hit San Francisco. Here’s newscaster Anderson Cooper, in a clip filmed after Katrina hit the Gulf in 2005.

ANDERSON COOPER: Person after person came up to me today, and they were angry, and they’re saying, where is the federal government? Yes, there are some FEMA urban search and rescue here, but where’s the Army? Where is the National Guard? I mean, people, it is desperate here, it is a desperate situation. There is no food, no water...

If we learned anything from Katrina, it’s that when something really bad happens, the federal government might not come save us. But when most people think of disaster preparedness, they think of Red Cross first aid trainings, or joining neighborhood watch groups. What makes the militia guys different is that they’ve decided to carry guns. So in an emergency situation, what is a militia allowed to do? I asked Jesse Choper, a professor of constitutional law at U.C. Berkeley.

JESSE CHOPER: If there isn’t any law barring it, then I would say they can’t be convicted of anything by simply going out, and trying to do good deeds. The question becomes well, are the deeds good, or do they violate other laws?  

Choper told me that it’s hard to know what laws would cover a militia acting in a disaster, because it so rarely happens. But the militia guys think the Constitution is pretty clear.

MAN: Are you defending the Constitution, if in your neighborhood, you have an individual running down the street, taking a loaf of bread and running, and you shoot him, rope him, tackle him, hit him with a billy club? Is that protecting the Constitution?

VOICES: No!

MAN: If you see a little old lady getting her purse taken away from her as she’s sitting in her wheelchair, they’re dragging her wheelchair, taking anything from her. Are you protecting the community or the Constitution by going and helping her?

VOICES: Yes!

Sounds easy, right? Person takes some food, you let them go. Same person beats up a little old lady, you intervene. Simple. But when a natural disaster strikes – and that’s the kind of thing these guys talk about most often – things won’t necessarily be that clear cut. Militias were in the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, too, and they shot people who weren’t looting. So far, none of the local squads have had to confront this kind of situation. They say they know what they’re training for, but until something happens, it’s hard to know what they would do.

VOICE: Find a place to secure, and start kinda looking for cover. 

Today’s training lasts a few hours, and the guys take it seriously. They stay as quiet as they can while they’re moving, and duck every time a car goes by on the road. They’re trying to learn to work as a team. And for a lot of them, that seems to be the point. Craig Martin has been in the militia for about a year. As he speaks, there's gunfire in the background. No one was shooting anything during the training, but afterwards, a few guys did some target practice.

CRAIG MARTIN: I don’t know, I guess being in a militia is like anything else. Somebody wants to be part of something. Somebody wants to be part of a baseball team, or Boy Scouts, or what have you, or some political activist group. But this is more, you’re learning how to protect yourself, your family, your local community, and even on a state level if you can be organized on a state level. Nice to be part of it, it’s patriotic and you're also with people around you who are like-minded, they care about their country, they don’t hate the government, they might dislike things the government is doing.

If being a citizen means participating in your government and supporting your country, well, that’s what these guys say they’re doing. They talk about voting, and educating people about their constitutional rights. About how important it is for them to get to know their communities. But this part of their lives isn’t something most of their neighbors know about. Like Roy McCarty said, when people hear the word militia, it freaks them out. And most of these guys live hours apart. So when the earthquake strikes, or the city floods, assembling the militia might not even be possible. But they feel it’s their duty to prepare. 

In the hills outside of Sacramento, I’m Casey Miner for Crosscurrents. 

Casey Miner is a reporter at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.