in the earliest days of our country america s founding fathers believed a citizens militia could handle most of our military needs, but after hundreds of years of wars and conflicts we now maintain the most powerful professional armed forces in the world. but we never disbanded our official militia. since 1903 it has been organized as part of the u.s. army and can be called up by state governors and the president in times of crisis. it s a militia that has evolved from minutemen and muskets to pilots and supersonic fighter jets and has a name you probably know, the united states national guard. we re your neighbors, your school teachers. we come from all walks of life because we re motivated by patriotism and the desire to serve the country. i ve come to arlington, virginia to talk to the guard s second in command, lieutenant general mark sassville. what are the different kinds of militias?
government? mark has spent the last 30 years tracing movements of far right militias. once upon a time the colonists saw the government after the british were kicked out as their friend. as history progressed, though, the government became bigger and it came to be seen more and more as an enemy. over the course of the next 200 years the government would abolish slavery and in modern times promote policies for racial equality that inflamed elements on the far right. then tech jobs and globalization decimated blue collar manufacturing jobs and for white men without a college degree average wages have been dropping for the past four decades. the majority of militia members in the united states are white men. who seem to have a lot of grievances. do you think the grievances are valid? whole most people in the militia movement don t explicitly talk about it behind
agreed to talk to us. he suggested that i come over and meet him at his hunting club. hey, mark. hi, lisa. how are you? nice to see you. nice to meet you. bandit here. he is ready. hello, bandit. mark represents one of the wolverine watchmen, a shy 25-year-old aircraft mechanic named ty garbin who grew up in a blue collar suburb of detroit. he has pled guilty to a federal kidnapping conspiracy charge which carries a potential life sentence. i know michigan is known for being a big hunting state. november 15th the opening day of rifle season is a state holiday here. so you can see bandit on point right there. bandit has a pheasant. you got that one. we did.
guys sitting around in a basement drinking beers and kind of wishing they could do something. they took action. they conducted surveillance. they thought through weapons. they thought through supreme court plans. what are the parallels between overseas terrorism and domestic terrorism? certainly that road that people take, you know, from someone who is sitting in their house and kind of dabbling online particularly young men are just fed a diet of disinformation and misinformation and they absorb it and they start believing it and they start holding fast to these conspiracy theories. so a lawyer for one of the men involved in the kidnapping plot of governor whitmer has agreed to talk to us. he suggested that i come over and meet him at his hunting club. hey, mark. hi, lisa. how are you? nice to see you. nice to meet you. bandit here.
he is ready. hello, bandit. mark represents one of the wolverine watchmen, a shy 25-year-old aircraft mechanic named ty garbon who grew up in a blue collar suburb of detroit. he has pled guilty to a federal kidnapping conspiracy charge which carries a potential life sentence. i know michigan is known for being a big hunting state. november 15th the opening day of rifle season is a state holiday here. so you can see bandit on point right there. bandit has a pheasant. you got that one weefrjs did. bandit, dead bird. fetch it up. why is this state such a haven for armed groups and militias?