Known herein at rec.boats as the Tom Francis effect:


Some 100 new militia groups have formed since the election of
President Barack Obama, says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a re-run of the phenomenon seen when President Bill Clinton took
office, gun-rights advocates, libertarians, survivalists and others
are forming militias as a symbol of their resistance to what they see
as an administration that threatens to restrict their right to bear
arms and expand government control over the lives of private citizens.

"The truth is that these groups are popping up like mushrooms after a
spring rain," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a
social-justice group that has been tracking the rise of militias over
the past year.

Potok's group put out a report earlier this year raising the alarm
about the resurgence of armed militias. Since then, he told CNN, the
group has counted about 100 new groups formed across the country.

"There really is this terrible fear mixed with fury about the idea
that President Obama is somehow leading a socialistic takeover of
America," Potok said.

A CNN news crew that visited the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia
found a group that sees itself as a "deterrent" to any attempts to
restrict gun use, and otherwise sees itself as a place to learn
survival skills.

"Just the simple fact that we are out here and we are doing this, will
give somebody pause, will make them think twice," said militia member
Michael Lackomar, who added that he thought Obama "could be dangerous
for the nation."

"Anytime we get a Democratic president in the office, people become
concerned, including myself, and we get a resurgence out here," said
one militia member, identified only as Brian.

But CNN's Jim Acosta points out that gun control "is unrealistic in
many ways, because the Obama administration and the Democrats know
that it would be political suicide for them to go after gun control
measures. Even the attorney general has indicated he won't go back to
the assault weapons ban enacted in the Clinton administration."

In its report from August, the Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out
that the most recent wave of militia groups differs slightly from the
wave seen under President Clinton in one respect.

"A key difference this time is that the federal government — the
entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy
— is headed by a black man," the report states. "That, coupled with
high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage
of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot
movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate."