• Dasus@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Militia isn’t defined by being part of the State.

    It’s a term used to describe a military force comprised of civilians. There’s even a modern connotation of being against the state.

    a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities in opposition to a regular army.

    Gangs aren’t purely for military purposes, so if the purpose of this gang is an armed attack against a govenrment agency, then it’s not unreasonable to call them a militia.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        I don’t understand. Do you find that confusing?

        Boiled down, “militia” doesn’t mean much more than “group of non-soldiers organised in a soldier sort of way with the intention of doing soldier sort of things”.

    • Gigasser@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I think the term is private vs state militias, and with this article being about armed militias, we are talking about armed private vs armed state militias. I think technically all 50 states have laws on the books that prohobit various forms of private armed militia activity. Is it enforceable? Maybe, but that would maybe probably cause a nation wide incident given the amount of violence these groups can wield (though they would probably still lose against any organized state militias or any official state/federal military force), as well as increase the chance of a homegrown insurgency popping up. That’s just my armchair opinion or thought about it though, I’m just armchairing here.