The Myth of the Menacing Militias   Flash back to the end of
March, when the authorities hauled in nine members of the
Hutaree, a Christian paramilitary group, and charged them with
plotting a mass assassination of police officers. The media
quickly added the arrests to the ongoing narrative of "rising
right-wing violence," with the Michigan-based militants cast as
the leading edge of a smoldering paramilitary threat.
Newscasters and columnists touted a report by the Southern
Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claiming that the number of anti-
government "Patriot" organizations is skyrocketing. An
"astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009," the
center declared, "with the totals going from 149 groups
(including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias)—a 244%
jump." If you worry about political violence, the SPLC warned,
such growth "is cause for grave concern."  A month later, the
Hutaree case is in a state of flux, with prosecutors appealing
Judge Victoria Roberts' ruling that the accused should be
release