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Michigan Militia Prepares for Action (with video) ROSE CITY, MI (Michigan Radio) - A year into the Obama administration, some people are more worried than ever that private gun ownership is in jeopardy. Members of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia are ready to fight to keep their weapons.

It's a Wednesday night in February, and 22 men and one woman are gathered at Mayberry's Restaurant in Farmington Hills. They're all Caucasian. Some are middle-aged, out of shape; others are in their twenties, and fit.

This is the militia's monthly business meeting. It's also recruitment night. (Story continued below)



The group says it welcomes everyone, regardless of race, religion or politics.

Postal worker Lee Miracle leads the meeting. He has a full beard, a long ponytail and he's dressed in a worn "Jesus Patrol" t-shirt and shorts. Miracle is the father of eight children, and he's been involved with the militia since the mid-1990s.

Tonight's topic is the winter survival training camp.

"It's gonna be cold, and it is a survival weekend. If you do not survive, you will fail the exercise, and we will have far too much paperwork to fill out. And let that add to your fears, you will become more meat for the stew. We've never had anyone die at a Snow Dawg training. We've had people who wanted to."

Only one potential new member shows up at the meeting. Jeff is in his early thirties, he has a wife and a new baby. He's deeply distrustful of the government and he believes something is to about happen, probably the collapse of the American economy.

"Well, I feel like I can't rely on our elected officials, I can't rely on our military who works for our government, so bottom line is we have to have somebody to rely on," he says.

The survival camp takes place over the weekend on private, wooded property about three hours north of Detroit. It's 20 degrees outside, but the sun takes the edge off the cold.

Some participants don't want to be identified, interviewed or photographed, and the militia makes it clear no pictures are to be taken of any license plates.

Amy Cooter is the only woman here, but she's not a member. She's getting her PhD in sociology from the University of Michigan, and she's been studying the group for two years.

"I think that they're more often seen, publicly as a group, paranoids, out in the woods with tin-foil hats, but these are men who vote on a regular basis, who talk about political issues in their meetings, and who encourage people to write their congressmen," Cooter says. "And I think that's not what people expect."

A 20-year-old mechanical engineering student who calls himself Mr. Mosin is in full winter camouflage. He says he's a conservative Libertarian, and believes the function of the militia is to keep civilization intact during a natural disaster or civil unrest.

"You can either be a couch potato, or you can go out and say, 'I'm doing something productive,'" he says. "I'm going out, I'm learning skill at arms, first-aid, something that might be beneficial at some time in the future."

Protecting the Second Amendment is the primary reason for the militia's existence.

Jeff is 42. He's a rifle team leader. He believes the current administration is sneaking around the back door to take his guns away, and he wants the right to protect his family during an emergency

"Okay, I've got this food, I've got this water," he says. "I need to be able to defend that from people that don't. In a time of need, a couple of weeks without food and water and gasoline, people are going to be hungry. And they're going to do desperate things to do whatever they can to feed their families."

It's late afternoon, and time for target practice. They're using long guns and handguns.

Lee Miracle says this militia isn't subversive -- it's patriotic and embraces the Constitution.

"I don't think there's a hateful bone out there on this range today," Miracle says. These are just upbeat, happy people -- except when I get them up for guard duty, and then they're a little sour."

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