To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement

To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement. By Robert H. Churchill. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. xiv, 370 pp. $35.00, isbn 978-0-47211682-9.)

After browsing responses to this book on the Internet, it is tempting to characterize it as a motivational reader for right-wing gun-rights advocates and militia groups. "You can't know where we are unless you know where we've been," writes "Mike III" on a Web site dedicated to "the 3 percent" - those gun-owning Americans who "will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked" (Sipsey Street Irregulars Web site, June 2009). Robert H. Churchill works to break down the stereotypes about militia groups perpetuated by the media, historians, and liberal groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center in...