After Issuing a Call to Arms, Minuteman Group Disbands

Last week, I reported that the nativist Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) sent an email to members calling on them to come to the border "locked and loaded." In an odd twist, the organization has now disbanded because its members responded ready to do, well, exactly what they were asked to.

Carmen Mercer, MCDC president, who sent out the original email, says that the group cannot shoulder the responsibility and liability of what could happen when people show up at the border to "forcefully engage," as the email encouraged. "People are ready to come lock and loaded and that’s not what we are all about," Mercer states. Um ... if that's not what you're about, then why did you tell your members to do just that?

Now, I'd like to believe that the organization, one of the country's largest vigilante groups, had a crisis of conscience and regrets inciting violence. But I notice that the MCDC chose to simply cease operations, rather than use its influence to tell members that the rhetoric got out of hand and not to descend on the border armed to the teeth. It seems more like Mercer wants to get off the hook in case any murders occur, perhaps so the organization can reform in the future without being blamed for the wave of violence they, in fact, started. Since the group formed in 2002, it has gone through three different names; perhaps this is just the precursor to a new face for the organization.

The Sanctuary also brings up that the disbanding of the MCDC might actually be prompted more by financial concerns than worries over violent extremism: the organization has been beset by allegations of financial shadiness and illegality from its own membership and donors. And Mercer herself is a little busy dealing with her own legal troubles, since she was recently named in a property tax scam.

Photo credit: Svadilfari