White House gun control leads to soaring ‘patriot’ group memberships

The more the White House cracks down on Second Amendment freedoms, the more Americans are banding together and joining limited government — or even anti-government — organizations known as “patriot” groups.

That’s according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which just released a report on the rising numbers of what it calls extremist groups. Within that category is a segment referred to anti-government patriot groups, The Associated Press reports. And that segment is growing — from 149 groups in 2008 to 1,360 today, AP reports. It grew 7 percent, to 1,274 groups, since 2011 alone, AP says.

The SPLC attributes these some of this growth to the election and re-election of a black president, combined with a lagging economy, AP reports.

“The anger, angst, frustration, fear surrounding the economy have very much poured fuel on this fire,” said Mark Potok, senior fellow at SPLC, in the AP report. 

The SPLC purports that the growth of this “Patriot Movement” is in large part due the symbolization America’s first black president means for the white race, and that these “hate groups” are a result of the fear whites have of losing their majority status in 2043.

“Now that comprehensive immigration reform is poised to legitimize and potentially accelerate the country’s demographic change, the backlash to that change may accelerate as well,” it reads.

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The SPLC report says that this “Patriot Movement” generally believes that the federal government is conspiring to take Americans’ guns as it paves the way for a global “one-world government.” 

The center sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, asking for it to assess the dangers of these “patriot groups.”

“As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now also are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns,” the letter, who was authored by SPLC president Richard Cohen, stated. “Because of the looming dangers, we urge you to establish an interagency task force to assess the adequacy of resources devoted to responding to the growing threat of non-Islamic domestic terrorism.”