User:LavaBaron/militia

Legal legitimacy
Most rump militias envisage themselves as legally legitimate organizations authorized under constitutional and statute law, specifically references in state and federal law to an "unorganized militia," a misinterpreted statutory construct. Others subscribe to the "insurrection theory" which describes the right of the body politic to rebel against the established government in the face of tyranny. (In the 1951 case Dennis v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the insurrection theory, stating that as long as the government provides for free elections and trials by jury, "political self-defense" cannot be undertaken.)

Opposition to government
While rump militias have a variety ideologies and objectives including anti-tax, anti-immigration, survivalist, white supremacist, sovereign citizen, libertarian and southern restoration tendencies, they generally share a common belief in the imminent or actual rise of a tyrannical government in the United States that, they believe, must be confronted through armed force.