My dear Patriots.
I understand your feelings have been bruised by the many mentions of your groups as "terrorists." Understandably so. Nothing is so loathesome to civilized minds as one who would inflict violence and fear on the innocent to further their political beliefs. I'm also told you prefer to be known as members of a militia. Certainly a nobler appellation, but one which poses some complications.
As you are known to be scholars of the Constitution, let us begin there. Please get out your ubiquitous pocket copies and follow along.
Article I, Section 8 of our founding document states, ""The Congress shall have the power ... To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions ... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
The rather vague description (Congress defines, states appoint officers) was clarified somewhat by the First Militia Act of 1792, which specified " "whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe" and, further, authorized the nationalization of state militias "whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state," specifically when the lawbreaking was too big for civil authorities to handle.
The same year, Congress fulfilled its constitutional duty by outlining exactly how state militias were to be organized in the Second Militia Act. In 1795, Congress made clear that the militias could be called into service by the president of the United States.
These laws, along with state laws regarding militias, appear to have sufficed for the needs of such organizations, standing largely unchanged for over a century. However, jurisdictional feuds and other SNAFUs which developed in the Spanish-American War led to the scrapping of the 1792 statutes and their replacement in 1903, when command structures and specific requirements for federalization were codified in a new Militia Act, which defined two varieties of militia, Reserve and state National Guard units.
Got all that? Great. Now let's jump back to that booklet you love so dearly and the passage quoted above: "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
So, it appears that our Founders were quite specific in the matter of what a militia is and who controls it, to wit, the Congress and president of the United States and, in the matter of staffing, the executives of individual states. This authority was further clarified by the 1827 court case of Martin v. Mott, in which the Supreme Court ruled emphatically that the president has sole authority over whether militias could be called out for military operations.
Never has there been a single court case or law allowing citizens themselves to make such a determination. I cannot find any evidence of a "DIY Militia Act" of any year.
So it's clear that under no legal or constitutional definition can your group be called a "militia." While you may not like the label "terrorists," your actions bring you squarely under that definition, as Merriam-Webster marks it. At best, you could be called "thugs" or a "violent street gang" (admittedly with a marked lack of streets at present).
But if, by bending law and language to the breaking point, you could, in any interpretation, be considered a militia, you know who your boss would be?
This guy.
Have a nice day. Pick up your trash before you leave our bird refuge, please.