In 2017, van Spronsen was the club's first recruit. Helping marginalized communities in organizing community defense against white supremacists / fascism. education, and advocacy centered around individual gun owners. The Russell, Kansas John Brown Gun Club went live in late June of 2020 and now counts 33 members. If that happens, to quote the Bhor, I will "drink their souls to hell.". In his letter, van Spronsen wrote: "I am antifa," a reference to antifascist activists who fight the far right in a variety of extrajudicial ways but seldom with fatal violence. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. News of an attack trickled out of Tacoma, Wash., just after dawn on a summer morning in July 2019. They have since co-organized a Black Lives Matter rally with How will I go on living? "This is one of the few cases where it appears," Jones said, "that someone was being proactive and potentially plotting an attack.". And a particularly rare one. hide caption. At the time, however, the area was welcoming and vibrant, with the feel of a street fair. At the time of her father's death, Ariel released a single statement that praised her father for his activism while making clear that she didn't share his stance on violent protest. WebDonate to the John Brown Solidarity Fund, to support anti-fascist community defense groups nationwide. They brought along Van Spronsen's ashes and released them into the water. Footage released from that night shows van Spronsen's car ablaze, the flames so big they fill the frame of the surveillance camera. Yes, she said, her father's actions fit the technical definition of domestic terrorism. He also had flares; police say he placed one underneath a 500-gallon propane tank. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for van Spronsen a year after his death. Recruit No. One far-right commentator offered $1,000 for a copy of the letter. Jim Urquhart for NPR He said that's what makes van Spronsen's case so unusual. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club gather in memory of van Spronsen. In 2017, van Spronsen was the club's first recruit. Who wouldn't be antifascist?". You can go there and they offer classes. I've seen them - they are trying to be the SA without realizing who they are actually emulating. ", "Detention camps are an abomination," van Spronsen wrote. Displayed on the grass were some of van Spronsen's belongings: a John Brown T-shirt, military-green tactical gear, anti-cop buttons. "My son is safe and I'm safe that's all I wanted," she said. Web-Joe_Dirt- 3 yr. ago Was a member can confirm national collapsed some chapters folded into the coalition of armed labor, others became independent orgs focused on mutual aid, some still kept the name of John brown gun club and operate individually no longer a parts of any national organization. A small In todays episode we discuss the second amendment sanctuary movement that has gained momentum in Virginia following sweeping gun control measures introduced after Democrats won Virginias House and Senate for the first time in decades. "He believed only in home schooling. ", Xicano said he was moved by how van Spronsen, a European immigrant, stood up for Latino immigrants by "making the ultimate sacrifice. JavaScript is disabled. The John Brown Gun Club is a leftist gun-rights group originally based in Kansas. The original club was active between 2002 and 2008, but it has since given rise to spinoff groups such as the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club. The original club sought to militarize the white working class and spur it toward a social-justice revolution. throughout Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding. Still, Jones said, the number of far-left incidents is minuscule, typically only a couple a year, and in the case of antifa, they mainly involve spontaneous "melee violence" at demonstrations. "And I think that's a lot of what this is about. Behind then sets one old scout meaning they were bused to the spot or 10 road on the roof. The Trump administration portrays antifa, militant antifascists, as the leftist equivalent to violent hate groups on the right. In the early 2000s, Ariel said, her dad married for the fourth time and had a son. Scenes of black-clad militants at protests have shaped antifa's image in the popular imagination in large part because the bulk of antifascist work is unseen, said Mark Bray, a veteran activist and Rutgers University historian who wrote Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. On weekends, she got to visit her dad, Willem van Spronsen, who delighted in showing her Seattle landmarks like Pike Place Market. Armed with a semiautomatic rifle, authorities say, van Spronsen crept onto the grounds of a sprawling immigration jail, set his car on fire, tossed Molotov cocktails and died in a hail of police bullets. "Was it Will?" I think I actually used the words "FARC Milsim" and to them that was the greatest idea anyone had ever had. The mid-Missouri chapter of the John Brown Gun Club was founded in August 2017 in response to President Donald Trumps inauguration, and long-predates the 2020 riots. In the year since, she has been silent, out of grief and the sensitivities of being linked to a domestic terrorism case. By most any metric, that's simply wrong, extremism researchers say. In the early days of the investigation, the FBI showed up at her doorstep while she was in pajamas. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for Willem van Spronsen on July 28, 2019, at the site where he was killed by law enforcement outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma, Washington. "You can't possibly be ready for something like that," she said. After his death, van Spronsen was memorialized, virtually canonized, in some leftist quarters. The details were fuzzy at first one dead, a fire, the local ICE facility but those who were close to Willem van Spronsen all said the same thing: They just knew. She quickly drove to Seattle, handled arrangements for her father's cremation and got in touch with authorities. Members of the John Brown Gun Club and Redneck Revolt protest outside the Phoenix Convention Center, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Phoenix. "Looking at how many people white supremacists are killing shooting up synagogues and Black churches and so forth it would be worse if antifa weren't stopping them from organizing and normalizing their politics in society," he said. After van Spronsen's death, McMinimee said, the group voluntarily met with authorities and turned over the letter unopened that had arrived in the mail that afternoon. Ultimately, Ariel said, she believes her father's militancy was driven by his strong sense of love and justice; she doesn't think he belongs on the same domestic terrorism list as violent white nationalists and others on the far right who massacre civilians out of hate. hide caption. Ariel said. "Kids in cages," he called it. hide caption. In Washington state, the club is an aboveground legal group whose members wear insignia to identify themselves in public. Add a gun to the mix, he said, and "I'm the bull's-eye.". hide caption, Ariel says her dad was outraged by immigration policies like family separation; he'd already been arrested at the same ICE facility in 2018 in connection with assaulting an officer. Lara Smith, the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says the groups The family lived in a converted bus on Vashon Island, a hub for artists and activists. Can you talk about that? "Part of that was self-protection and then part of it was: How could he do this?" At the site of his death, supporters left signs saying, "Rest in power," and "Arm in arm with John Brown," likening him to the legendary white abolitionist whose violent crusade against slavery ended at the gallows. Nick Vasiliy, a member of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (left), teaches a self-defense class as the club provides security for demonstrators in Seattle. It is our mission to encourage, organize, and support these efforts throughout Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. We need real formulated responses for the upsurge in reactionary Some of them carried rifles. ". Am I going to be labeled a terrorist?' Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club gather in memory of van Spronsen. MCTA is basically a shooting range out in the middle of the woods, just across the state line. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for van Spronsen a year after his death. WebThe California Chapter is one of the largest chapters in the country and includes leadership and instructors in both Northern and Southern California. They believe he deliberately chose the middle of the night when no one was milling around. A shirt and pins that belonged to van Spronsen. "I was a total daddy's girl, madly in love with my dad, and we just had a really close bond," she said. "If you can create a boogeyman and if you can make it about us vs. them, humans crave that," Ariel said. It included a private letter that she said made clear that her father never intended to make it out alive that night. "And so we went ahead and released him into the water.". The interview was her first time speaking publicly about what happened that night. "I always used to tell people who didn't know my dad that he was cooler than I was.". ", At the time of her father's death, Ariel released a statement that praised her father for his activism while making clear that she didn't share his stance on violent protest. The Gun Club firmly supports members rights to bear arms for their own protection and as a safeguard against state overreach. * The Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, in particular, has taken a hard anti-police position, casting all police as mass shooters who harass minorities and seek out excuse to unload their weapons. "I'm a brown man living in Trump's America," Xicano said. Where will I train on not what to do? Spot publicitaires, documentaires, films, programmes tl et diffusion internet, Cours de franais/anglais des fins professionnels, prparation aux examens du TOEFL, TOEIC et IELTS, Relve de la garde royale Buckingham Palace, innovation technologique et apprentissage rapide. Still, she had no hint, she said, of what he was planning in secret. Jim Urquhart for NPR Surveillance video of van Spronsen's fiery attack was played over and over on Fox News as pundits warned of "a lot of lives in danger." The Tacoma Police Department's version goes like this: Before dawn on July 13, 2019, officers responded to a report of a gunman at the Northwest Detention Center. Ariel said she has spent the past year trying to come to terms with her father's death and how it has been mythologized by both the right and the left. "The problem is when you start getting into violence. But she doesn't think that's what pushed him over the edge. In 2017, the Rhode Island John Brown Gun Club was founded, a self-described leftist working-class community defense organization. And, during the early days of the pandemic, the Boston Globe reported on the crowds rushing to Rhode Islands gun stores: They saw people new to gun ownership, some of whom John Francis of "Kids in cages," he called it. The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and A 69-year-old lone gunman carrying out a premeditated operation with a fiery, fatal end is not the usual antifa playbook. Jim Urquhart is a photojournalist based in the western United States. hide caption. "I can imagine him playing music on the sidewalk or just setting up a chair and talking to people," Vasiliy said. "Ultimately, we decided as a club, unanimously, that we were not going to hide from this and that we were going to lean into what happened and to tell Will's story," McMinimee said. But she said the deep personal problems van Spronsen was going through challenges the easy casting of him as either villain or martyr. But in time, Aaron said, he saw how van Spronsen's personal touch helped win over other activists who opposed guns and who had watched the club's formation with a degree of suspicion. WebThe John Brown Gun Club is a leftist gun-rights group originally based in Kansas. hide caption. ". I went to a shoot with these jokers a few years ago in oregon, didn't know what they were about, and yea, they're pretty much a bunch of clueless tankies out there doing FARC milsim. The collapse was a shit show Aaron already had been mulling more aggressive activism, he said, and the swastikas set his plan in motion. WebLast week, a group of about 40 activists used their bodies and cars to block city officials from cleaning the site of a homeless encampment under Interstate 45 in South Dallas. Van Spronsen had long described himself as an anarchist; "antifascist" came later. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. Gun club member and friend Shannon McMinimee said van Spronsen cut official ties with the club a few weeks before his death. WebChapters of the Socialist Rifle Association. Stalin called them "useful idiots". "Will drove me nuts all day because he would start this conversation with somebody and end up with four or five people around him and it would take, like, an hour," Aaron said. Many antifa groups focus primarily on "doxxing," identifying and exposing far-right extremists in the police, military and other positions of power. "My dad's life was always very artful, very cool," Ariel said. Kansas Mutual Aid focused on a variety of organizing initiatives and social programs including free food distributions, support for political prisoners and prisoners of war, The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and father of two was a lifelong activist and early member of the armed antifascist group in the Seattle area. As word of a death at the detention center got out, calls flew among members of the John Brown Gun Club. Croatian AK47 AKM 30 round 7.62x39 magazines, Saiga 308 mags Russian Surfire 308win 7.62x51, WTS: Ruger 10/22 black synthetic stock with barrel band, HK91 G3, PTR, 20-round, 7.62x51 magazines, Tucson Mountain Park Rifle And Pistol Range. We believe the 2nd Amendment is best defended through grass-roots organization, education, and advocacy centered around individual gun owners. The protest camp's peaceful days were fleeting it has since been dismantled after a string of fatal shootings. "He knew what the outcome was going to be.". Yesterday morning we held our August 7th USARB 25 meter air rifle Benchrest match at Southern Michigan Gun Club. Ariel said she had long understood the risks involved in her father's activism, but the publicity around his death left little space to process the shock and grief of actually losing him. The death toll attributed to antifa: one. Van Spronsen once described it to friends as a "personal hell.". "It's just that those methods are more spectacular, public and newsworthy and generate a lot of the buzz around what antifa is.". They will be the ones who will be the firepower behind the "AntiFa brownshirts in the street riotsonly to shoot their own in the back and blame it on Republicans. The lawmakers asked for evidence on who's pushing campaigns in Idaho, North Carolina and other states about "apparently nonexistent Antifa gatherings and 'invasions.' We interview a member of the Steel City John Brown Gun Club about a pro-gun rally to be held on Jim Urquhart for NPR In 2017, he founded the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, part of a loose affiliation of armed leftists who offer firearms training to marginalized communities and who stand guard over unarmed protesters at rallies. Jones, the terrorism analyst, said antifascist activism is protected until it drifts into vigilante-style justice. After his death, van Spronsen was memorialized, virtually canonized, in some leftist quarters. hide caption. Headlines reduced her to "antifa daughter." Then, on Monday, activists showed up again even though there werent city officials around. They will ND their comrades right into their graves. The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and father of two was a lifelong activist and early member of the armed antifascist group in the Seattle area. On a warm day this month, just before the anniversary of van Spronsen's death, Ariel and her dad's second wife, Susan Harrell, kayaked onto Puget Sound. In a letter this month, two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee asked the CIA and FBI to look into false information campaigns intended to whip up fears about antifa groups. WebRedneck Revolt first launched in 2009 as an offshoot of the John Brown Gun Club. Bray argued that it's unfair to lump militants like van Spronsen into the terrorism category without a discussion of the violent ideologies they were targeting. Willem Van Spronsen Willem Van Spronsen (hightlighted) Screenshot from Puget Sound John It struck him as another troubling sign of a resurgence of racist, anti-Semitic hate. Shannon McMinimee, van Spronsen's friend and a fellow gun club member, said examining that night at the detention center is like looking into a kaleidoscope people turn it around until they see what they want. It was the grunge era, Ariel recalled, and he introduced her to the music, art and punk-inflected politics of the moment. Word of his death came when a message popped up on her Apple watch as she was working on a client's hair at the salon in Montana. The weather man had us down for a chance of rain all morning but as it turns out that happened overnight, and was cleared up by the time we got to the club. A shirt and pins that belonged to van Spronsen. "I believe I have my story of what was going on with him and why, but it took a long time," she said. Ariel van Spronsen "And we kind of agreed to disagree about that and still love each other. Founder Duke Aaron greets members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club. 'Not A Paramilitary.' " Xicano said. 1. Redneck Revolt and John Brown Gun Club According to Dave Strano, one of the founders of Redneck Revolt, the John Brown Gun Club was founded in the aughts to offer gun training to the radical community and also to distribute free anti-racist literature at gun shows in Kansas and Missouri. Nov 22, 22. In a phone interview from Seattle, van Spronsen's former wife said he had shown violent tendencies for years, stalking and threatening her. Willem van Spronsen with his daughter, Ariel. It went something like this: Stalinistic "useful idiots." In her telling, there is no terrorism: "For me, my friend was killed by the police while trying to destroy buses that were going to be used to round up and deport my neighbors.". "People taking militant action, whatever that militant part means, is what keeps fascism at bay," Aaron said. You are using an out of date browser which is likely incompatible with our website. "So when I was seeing people talk about this wild, crazed man, I'm like, 'No, that was not the case.' "I was a total daddy's girl, madly in love with my dad, and we just had a really close bond," Ariel recalled one recent afternoon, speaking by phone from Seattle. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. Author: Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club. Liberal Gun Club Lara Smith, the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says the groups membership jumped well over 10 percent after Trump took the White House. Antifa groups see a martyr. En 10 ans, nous avons su nous imposer en tant que leader dans notre industrie et rpondre aux attentes de nos clients. Van Spronsen's friends, including Vasiliy, said they wished he had lived to see the police-free Seattle protest camp formed earlier this summer. 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Helping marginalized communities in organizing community defense against white supremacists / fascism. education, and advocacy centered around individual gun owners. The Russell, Kansas John Brown Gun Club went live in late June of 2020 and now counts 33 members. If that happens, to quote the Bhor, I will "drink their souls to hell.". In his letter, van Spronsen wrote: "I am antifa," a reference to antifascist activists who fight the far right in a variety of extrajudicial ways but seldom with fatal violence. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. News of an attack trickled out of Tacoma, Wash., just after dawn on a summer morning in July 2019. They have since co-organized a Black Lives Matter rally with How will I go on living? "This is one of the few cases where it appears," Jones said, "that someone was being proactive and potentially plotting an attack.". And a particularly rare one. hide caption. At the time, however, the area was welcoming and vibrant, with the feel of a street fair. At the time of her father's death, Ariel released a single statement that praised her father for his activism while making clear that she didn't share his stance on violent protest. WebDonate to the John Brown Solidarity Fund, to support anti-fascist community defense groups nationwide. They brought along Van Spronsen's ashes and released them into the water. Footage released from that night shows van Spronsen's car ablaze, the flames so big they fill the frame of the surveillance camera. Yes, she said, her father's actions fit the technical definition of domestic terrorism. He also had flares; police say he placed one underneath a 500-gallon propane tank. 
Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for van Spronsen a year after his death. Recruit No. One far-right commentator offered $1,000 for a copy of the letter. 
Jim Urquhart for NPR He said that's what makes van Spronsen's case so unusual. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club gather in memory of van Spronsen. In 2017, van Spronsen was the club's first recruit. Who wouldn't be antifascist?". You can go there and they offer classes. I've seen them - they are trying to be the SA without realizing who they are actually emulating. ", "Detention camps are an abomination," van Spronsen wrote. Displayed on the grass were some of van Spronsen's belongings: a John Brown T-shirt, military-green tactical gear, anti-cop buttons. "My son is safe and I'm safe that's all I wanted," she said. 
Web-Joe_Dirt- 3 yr. ago Was a member can confirm national collapsed some chapters folded into the coalition of armed labor, others became independent orgs focused on mutual aid, some still kept the name of John brown gun club and operate individually no longer a parts of any national organization. A small In todays episode we discuss the second amendment sanctuary movement that has gained momentum in Virginia following sweeping gun control measures introduced after Democrats won Virginias House and Senate for the first time in decades. "He believed only in home schooling. ", Xicano said he was moved by how van Spronsen, a European immigrant, stood up for Latino immigrants by "making the ultimate sacrifice. JavaScript is disabled. The John Brown Gun Club is a leftist gun-rights group originally based in Kansas. The original club was active between 2002 and 2008, but it has since given rise to spinoff groups such as the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club. The original club sought to militarize the white working class and spur it toward a social-justice revolution. throughout Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding. Still, Jones said, the number of far-left incidents is minuscule, typically only a couple a year, and in the case of antifa, they mainly involve spontaneous "melee violence" at demonstrations. "And I think that's a lot of what this is about. Behind then sets one old scout meaning they were bused to the spot or 10 road on the roof. The Trump administration portrays antifa, militant antifascists, as the leftist equivalent to violent hate groups on the right. In the early 2000s, Ariel said, her dad married for the fourth time and had a son. Scenes of black-clad militants at protests have shaped antifa's image in the popular imagination in large part because the bulk of antifascist work is unseen, said Mark Bray, a veteran activist and Rutgers University historian who wrote Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. On weekends, she got to visit her dad, Willem van Spronsen, who delighted in showing her Seattle landmarks like Pike Place Market. Armed with a semiautomatic rifle, authorities say, van Spronsen crept onto the grounds of a sprawling immigration jail, set his car on fire, tossed Molotov cocktails and died in a hail of police bullets. "Was it Will?" I think I actually used the words "FARC Milsim" and to them that was the greatest idea anyone had ever had. The mid-Missouri chapter of the John Brown Gun Club was founded in August 2017 in response to President Donald Trumps inauguration, and long-predates the 2020 riots. In the year since, she has been silent, out of grief and the sensitivities of being linked to a domestic terrorism case. By most any metric, that's simply wrong, extremism researchers say. In the early days of the investigation, the FBI showed up at her doorstep while she was in pajamas. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for Willem van Spronsen on July 28, 2019, at the site where he was killed by law enforcement outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma, Washington. "You can't possibly be ready for something like that," she said. After his death, van Spronsen was memorialized, virtually canonized, in some leftist quarters. The details were fuzzy at first one dead, a fire, the local ICE facility but those who were close to Willem van Spronsen all said the same thing: They just knew. She quickly drove to Seattle, handled arrangements for her father's cremation and got in touch with authorities. Members of the John Brown Gun Club and Redneck Revolt protest outside the Phoenix Convention Center, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Phoenix. "Looking at how many people white supremacists are killing shooting up synagogues and Black churches and so forth it would be worse if antifa weren't stopping them from organizing and normalizing their politics in society," he said. After van Spronsen's death, McMinimee said, the group voluntarily met with authorities and turned over the letter unopened that had arrived in the mail that afternoon. Ultimately, Ariel said, she believes her father's militancy was driven by his strong sense of love and justice; she doesn't think he belongs on the same domestic terrorism list as violent white nationalists and others on the far right who massacre civilians out of hate. hide caption. Ariel said. "Kids in cages," he called it. hide caption. In Washington state, the club is an aboveground legal group whose members wear insignia to identify themselves in public. Add a gun to the mix, he said, and "I'm the bull's-eye.". hide caption, Ariel says her dad was outraged by immigration policies like family separation; he'd already been arrested at the same ICE facility in 2018 in connection with assaulting an officer. Lara Smith, the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says the groups The family lived in a converted bus on Vashon Island, a hub for artists and activists. Can you talk about that? "Part of that was self-protection and then part of it was: How could he do this?" At the site of his death, supporters left signs saying, "Rest in power," and "Arm in arm with John Brown," likening him to the legendary white abolitionist whose violent crusade against slavery ended at the gallows. Nick Vasiliy, a member of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club (left), teaches a self-defense class as the club provides security for demonstrators in Seattle. It is our mission to encourage, organize, and support these efforts throughout Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. We need real formulated responses for the upsurge in reactionary 
Some of them carried rifles. ". Am I going to be labeled a terrorist?' Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club gather in memory of van Spronsen. MCTA is basically a shooting range out in the middle of the woods, just across the state line. Members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club hold a memorial service for van Spronsen a year after his death. 
"If you can create a boogeyman and if you can make it about us vs. them, humans crave that," Ariel said. It included a private letter that she said made clear that her father never intended to make it out alive that night. "And so we went ahead and released him into the water.". The interview was her first time speaking publicly about what happened that night. "I always used to tell people who didn't know my dad that he was cooler than I was.". ", At the time of her father's death, Ariel released a statement that praised her father for his activism while making clear that she didn't share his stance on violent protest. The Gun Club firmly supports members rights to bear arms for their own protection and as a safeguard against state overreach. * The Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, in particular, has taken a hard anti-police position, casting all police as mass shooters who harass minorities and seek out excuse to unload their weapons. "I'm a brown man living in Trump's America," Xicano said. Where will I train on not what to do? Spot publicitaires, documentaires, films, programmes tl et diffusion internet, Cours de franais/anglais des fins professionnels, prparation aux examens du TOEFL, TOEIC et IELTS, Relve de la garde royale Buckingham Palace, innovation technologique et apprentissage rapide. Still, she had no hint, she said, of what he was planning in secret. Jim Urquhart for NPR Surveillance video of van Spronsen's fiery attack was played over and over on Fox News as pundits warned of "a lot of lives in danger." The Tacoma Police Department's version goes like this: Before dawn on July 13, 2019, officers responded to a report of a gunman at the Northwest Detention Center. Ariel said she has spent the past year trying to come to terms with her father's death and how it has been mythologized by both the right and the left. "The problem is when you start getting into violence. But she doesn't think that's what pushed him over the edge. In 2017, the Rhode Island John Brown Gun Club was founded, a self-described leftist working-class community defense organization. And, during the early days of the pandemic, the Boston Globe reported on the crowds rushing to Rhode Islands gun stores: They saw people new to gun ownership, some of whom John Francis of "Kids in cages," he called it. The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and A 69-year-old lone gunman carrying out a premeditated operation with a fiery, fatal end is not the usual antifa playbook. Jim Urquhart is a photojournalist based in the western United States. hide caption. "I can imagine him playing music on the sidewalk or just setting up a chair and talking to people," Vasiliy said. "Ultimately, we decided as a club, unanimously, that we were not going to hide from this and that we were going to lean into what happened and to tell Will's story," McMinimee said. But she said the deep personal problems van Spronsen was going through challenges the easy casting of him as either villain or martyr. But in time, Aaron said, he saw how van Spronsen's personal touch helped win over other activists who opposed guns and who had watched the club's formation with a degree of suspicion. WebThe John Brown Gun Club is a leftist gun-rights group originally based in Kansas. hide caption. ". I went to a shoot with these jokers a few years ago in oregon, didn't know what they were about, and yea, they're pretty much a bunch of clueless tankies out there doing FARC milsim. The collapse was a shit show Aaron already had been mulling more aggressive activism, he said, and the swastikas set his plan in motion. WebLast week, a group of about 40 activists used their bodies and cars to block city officials from cleaning the site of a homeless encampment under Interstate 45 in South Dallas. Van Spronsen had long described himself as an anarchist; "antifascist" came later. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. Gun club member and friend Shannon McMinimee said van Spronsen cut official ties with the club a few weeks before his death. WebChapters of the Socialist Rifle Association. Stalin called them "useful idiots". "Will drove me nuts all day because he would start this conversation with somebody and end up with four or five people around him and it would take, like, an hour," Aaron said. Many antifa groups focus primarily on "doxxing," identifying and exposing far-right extremists in the police, military and other positions of power. "My dad's life was always very artful, very cool," Ariel said. Kansas Mutual Aid focused on a variety of organizing initiatives and social programs including free food distributions, support for political prisoners and prisoners of war, The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and father of two was a lifelong activist and early member of the armed antifascist group in the Seattle area. 
As word of a death at the detention center got out, calls flew among members of the John Brown Gun Club. Croatian AK47 AKM 30 round 7.62x39 magazines, Saiga 308 mags Russian Surfire 308win 7.62x51, WTS: Ruger 10/22 black synthetic stock with barrel band, HK91 G3, PTR, 20-round, 7.62x51 magazines, Tucson Mountain Park Rifle And Pistol Range. We believe the 2nd Amendment is best defended through grass-roots organization, education, and advocacy centered around individual gun owners. The protest camp's peaceful days were fleeting it has since been dismantled after a string of fatal shootings. "He knew what the outcome was going to be.". Yesterday morning we held our August 7th USARB 25 meter air rifle Benchrest match at Southern Michigan Gun Club. Ariel said she had long understood the risks involved in her father's activism, but the publicity around his death left little space to process the shock and grief of actually losing him. 
The death toll attributed to antifa: one. Van Spronsen once described it to friends as a "personal hell.". "It's just that those methods are more spectacular, public and newsworthy and generate a lot of the buzz around what antifa is.". They will be the ones who will be the firepower behind the "AntiFa brownshirts in the street riotsonly to shoot their own in the back and blame it on Republicans. The lawmakers asked for evidence on who's pushing campaigns in Idaho, North Carolina and other states about "apparently nonexistent Antifa gatherings and 'invasions.' We interview a member of the Steel City John Brown Gun Club about a pro-gun rally to be held on Jim Urquhart for NPR In 2017, he founded the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, part of a loose affiliation of armed leftists who offer firearms training to marginalized communities and who stand guard over unarmed protesters at rallies. 
Jones, the terrorism analyst, said antifascist activism is protected until it drifts into vigilante-style justice. After his death, van Spronsen was memorialized, virtually canonized, in some leftist quarters. hide caption. Headlines reduced her to "antifa daughter." Then, on Monday, activists showed up again even though there werent city officials around. They will ND their comrades right into their graves. The Dutch-born immigrant, musician and father of two was a lifelong activist and early member of the armed antifascist group in the Seattle area. On a warm day this month, just before the anniversary of van Spronsen's death, Ariel and her dad's second wife, Susan Harrell, kayaked onto Puget Sound. In a letter this month, two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee asked the CIA and FBI to look into false information campaigns intended to whip up fears about antifa groups. 
WebRedneck Revolt first launched in 2009 as an offshoot of the John Brown Gun Club. Bray argued that it's unfair to lump militants like van Spronsen into the terrorism category without a discussion of the violent ideologies they were targeting. Willem Van Spronsen Willem Van Spronsen (hightlighted) Screenshot from Puget Sound John It struck him as another troubling sign of a resurgence of racist, anti-Semitic hate. Shannon McMinimee, van Spronsen's friend and a fellow gun club member, said examining that night at the detention center is like looking into a kaleidoscope people turn it around until they see what they want. It was the grunge era, Ariel recalled, and he introduced her to the music, art and punk-inflected politics of the moment. Word of his death came when a message popped up on her Apple watch as she was working on a client's hair at the salon in Montana. The weather man had us down for a chance of rain all morning but as it turns out that happened overnight, and was cleared up by the time we got to the club. 
A shirt and pins that belonged to van Spronsen. "I believe I have my story of what was going on with him and why, but it took a long time," she said. Ariel van Spronsen "And we kind of agreed to disagree about that and still love each other. Founder Duke Aaron greets members of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club. 
'Not A Paramilitary.' " Xicano said. 1. Redneck Revolt and John Brown Gun Club According to Dave Strano, one of the founders of Redneck Revolt, the John Brown Gun Club was founded in the aughts to offer gun training to the radical community and also to distribute free anti-racist literature at gun shows in Kansas and Missouri. Nov 22, 22. In a phone interview from Seattle, van Spronsen's former wife said he had shown violent tendencies for years, stalking and threatening her. Willem van Spronsen with his daughter, Ariel. It went something like this: Stalinistic "useful idiots." In her telling, there is no terrorism: "For me, my friend was killed by the police while trying to destroy buses that were going to be used to round up and deport my neighbors.". "People taking militant action, whatever that militant part means, is what keeps fascism at bay," Aaron said. You are using an out of date browser which is likely incompatible with our website. 
"So when I was seeing people talk about this wild, crazed man, I'm like, 'No, that was not the case.' "I was a total daddy's girl, madly in love with my dad, and we just had a really close bond," Ariel recalled one recent afternoon, speaking by phone from Seattle. He stood up to far-right leaders at local rallies, and he was a fixture at demonstrations against U.S. immigration policies, especially family separation. Author: Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club. Liberal Gun Club Lara Smith, the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club, says the groups membership jumped well over 10 percent after Trump took the White House. Antifa groups see a martyr. En 10 ans, nous avons su nous imposer en tant que leader dans notre industrie et rpondre aux attentes de nos clients. Van Spronsen's friends, including Vasiliy, said they wished he had lived to see the police-free Seattle protest camp formed earlier this summer. That's where you start to cross a line in the U.S., and that's where it starts to get into the terrorism arena.". The interview took place at the height of Seattle's latest unrest, part of the wave that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. "The fact that the federal government is now trying to turn being against fascism into some sort of wrongdoing, some enemy of the state, says a lot more about them than it does anybody who's ever confronted a Nazi or a militia guy. 
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