What is the Militia at Bundy Ranch?

The Wiki defines a “militia” as the following.

A militia /mɨˈlɪʃə/[1] generally is an army or other fighting force that is composed of non-professional fighters; citizens of a nation or subjects of a state or government that can be called upon to enter a combat situation, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel.

A militia, in the usual sense, is not a political organization, but has a purpose of only common defense. The militia that turned out at Bundy Ranch has a political goal of opposing the national Government and can better be described as a “select militia.”

A select militia is composed of a small, non-representative portion of the population, often politicized

What many are calling the “militia,” such as turned out at Bundy Ranch, is a paramilitary organization with roots in the Posse Commitatus movement of the 1970’s and whose own doctrine was much influenced by ideas of neo-Nazis, the KKK and the cultic Christian Identity movement.

This is not to condone the heavy-handed actions of the Bureau of Land Management or the encroachment of federal agencies on civil rights, in general, but just to point out that there are extreme influences on both sides of this conflict. The events at Bundy ranch came close to causing the deaths of potentially many people. Armed confrontation does not seem justified just to assert Bundy’s grazing rights on public land.