 Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Bobby MacDensley. I'm a director and senior fellow here at New America. And I'd like to welcome you to what is going to be a truly fantastic conversation with a stellar group of panelists who are as well positioned as anyone to talk about how to prevent the next Charlottesville. I just want to briefly introduce our panelists. Peter Bergen wasn't able to join us tonight. So let me just go through the list here. Josh Gelzer is a friend of New America and also a fellow here. He's the Arizona State Future of War fellow. He is also the executive director of Georgetown University's Law Center Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. And among his many other former positions in government, he was senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. Next to Josh is Mary McCord, who is a senior litigator from practice and visiting professor of law at Georgetown University's Law Centers Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. And among her many other former positions in government, she was the acting assistant attorney general for national security at the US Department of Justice. Next to Mary is George Salim, a longtime friend of New America. And he is currently the senior vice president of programs at the Anti-Defamation League. And he is the former director of the Office of Community Partnership at the US Department of Homeland Security, among many other senior positions he held in government. And lastly, we have Adam Tucker, who has flown in today from Tennessee. Thank you for that, Adam. And he is an assistant city attorney at the city of Murford Bureau, Tennessee. And we are delighted to have all four of them here. Let me just turn this over to Josh because you and I have talked offline about this, especially in light of last week's horrific events in Florida, about the raging debate in this country about the right to bear arms. Following Charlottesville, you and Mary leaped into action and mobilized the Institute at Georgetown to not only have a lawsuit to ensure that we could prevent the next Charlottesville, but also to take a deep dive and think about, what can we do to prevent Charlottesville's from happening all over the country? So if you could maybe just start off by telling us what you guys did and how you did it, and then maybe we can turn it over to Mary who can tell us a little bit more about the survey of the 50 states. Sure. Well, thank you, Bobby, for hosting this. Thank you to New America. And while I'm saying thank yous, thank you to the rest of the ICAP team, some of whom are here, some of whom aren't, including especially Andy Marshack, who is a lawyer with us who's on maternity leave, but who was really critical to this 50 state catalog being done, as well as some attorneys of Paul Weiss who were supportive as we worked through this. So there's a long list of thank yous, but grateful for the chance to get to share what that work produced. So let me start in answering that, Bobby, maybe with a point you mentioned. It's in my background, but it's actually in the background of other folks here as well, which is working on counterterrorism, which Mary, George, and I, and others like Chris who are here today have spent a lot of time doing, because I think the events in Charlottesville in August resonated, at least for Mary and me and others with whom we were, in a particular way, given experience working on those issues. Terrorists, among the things that they are trying to achieve through violence and threat of more violence, is to cast doubt for a local population on who really has the monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a given area. That's the move from terrorism to insurgency. The terrorist groups are often trying to make, as they take territorial control and ultimately try to change politics, and in a sense have their vision for a state become the real state. And among the various things that we're disturbing, as the country watched that August weekend in Charlottesville, was a sense that that was happening here. At least for 48 hours, in some small way, within a confined geography, as you watched the pictures, the video, the accounts coming out of that weekend, things were up for grabs in a way that certainly disturbed us and disturbed a lot of the country, the sense that it wasn't clear as violence broke out in the streets in a way that it should be clear, who calls the shots, who uses force to reinforce law and order, rather than uses violence to call law and order into question and upset law and order. And so, given that background, it did impel us to try to think about where we could add value. The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown is relatively new, and a lot of us involved with it have been in government, and in particular have worked in law enforcement or on national security issues or both. And we've quite deliberately tried to bring that perspective to bear on some of the issues we've worked on, happy to talk about some of those others later as well. But here, as we listen to the legal commentary the Monday, Tuesday, days after the events in Charlottesville, one heard a lot about the First Amendment and how it guarantees a right to even very hateful speech, and that's true. And one heard a lot about the Second Amendment and how it's been interpreted to guarantee, at least an individual's right to bear certain arms in self-defense, which is consistent with some recent, relatively recent Supreme Court decisions. And then that seemed to be all the legal commentators had to say, and what we asked ourselves was, what more does the law have to say here? That's the law's only answer, something's really lacking, and it led us to that search of what more to prevent the question of who has that monopoly on the use of appropriate force from being put up for grabs again the way it was that weekend. So maybe I'll turn it over to Mary as we work through that answer. So I think what we saw in Charlottesville, the video footage showed really armies of banners, helmeted, shielded, weapons wielding, people marching through the streets of Charlottesville residential neighborhoods, business areas, shouting hateful slogans, but also very much acting in a military type of way. There were the alt-right and white nationalist groups that I've sort of just described. They had the banners, they had the shields, the helmets, they had all kinds of crude weapons like baths and batons and clubs. And then there were also self-professed militias that claimed to be there not to protest, but to actually keep the peace and to protect the rights of the alt-right and the white nationalists in order to express their views. And they came looking very much like the National Guard in many cases in full camouflage, tactical vests, combat boots, helmets, communicating by radio and with AR-15 perhaps most importantly. And they staked out positions at regular intervals on a perimeter at the south end of the park that was supposed to be the location for the rally. It was supposed to be a rally protesting the city's decision to remove a controversial Confederate statute of Robert E. Lee. And they stationed themselves there so that everyone, protester or counter-protestant would have to pass by them. So we looked at this footage and we thought that just doesn't seem right, as Josh said. And we happened upon a blog written by a UVA history professor, Phillip Zillico, who in the 80s had been a civil rights and constitutional litigator in the south and working with the Southern Poverty Law Center had used some state anti-militia and anti-pair military activity statutes to bring cases against the KKK. In Texas it was to bring a case against the KKK for their militia activities directed against Vietnamese fishermen. And in North Carolina it was for their harassing and intimidating and violent contact toward African Americans. And so the point of this one page blog post was there are similar statutes here in Virginia that permit private armies from taking up arms, whether these are firearms like AR-15s, like some of the self-professed militias carried, or whether these are other types of arms and organizing themselves in a coordinated manner as a paramilitary. And so we took a look at that, in fact called up Professor Zillico that very day and chatted with him about his theories and got to work researching the law and what was available in Virginia. And indeed, Virginia, like 48 states, we now know from doing the 50 state survey, has a constitutional provision just baked right in. In fact, Virginians was the first in 1776 which says, in all cases, the military shall be under the strict subordination of the civil authority. Therefore no private armies. The state, like many other states, heavily regulates the military and does not allow for private individuals to say we're gonna organize ourselves as a military unit and engage in military drill or other activity. There was also a anti-paramilitary activity statute on Virginia's books that prohibited two or more people from engaging together to practice or use techniques that could cause injury to persons or property and do so in furtherance of a civil disorder. By the way, there was also a statute that's featured in our 50 state survey that our case also relied on, which is a statute that bars people from falsely assuming the duties of a peace officer. And that's not to be confused with the impersonation statutes and even though that's what the label, I think, is the title of the statute. Those are statutes where somebody's actually pretending to be a law enforcement officer. This is just, this simply bars you assuming the duties of a law enforcement officer or a peace officer that, so you can be claiming you're the light foot militia as we have in our case, but if you're assuming the duties of the peace officer and you haven't gone through the training or the licensing from the state, then that's prohibited. So what we did having sort of found these statutes on the Virginia books and these constitutional provision is we went ahead and we started talking to people in Charlottesville, business owners, homeowners, residents, the city, city attorneys about what had happened that day and eventually brought our lawsuit in October, two months after the rally, suing these white supremacist groups and these self-professed militias for forward-looking injunctive relief only. So no money damages or anything like that, strictly an order that would prevent them from returning to Charlottesville and engaging in this paramilitary type activity. They could certainly, like anyone, feel free to return and engage in free speech, but violent conduct is not protected free speech and engaging in organizing together while armed as a militia or a paramilitary unit is not protected by the Second Amendment. That's our theory. That case is pending right now. Just last week in court we got a trial date for the summer, which is going to be just in the nick of time before the one-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in which, at which at least one of the named defendants has vowed to return and have another demonstration. But in the process of doing this work to build this case, we started realizing that these similar constitutional provisions and statutes exist in many, many states in the country. So as we're building our case, we started to work with some partners at Paul Weiss to do a 50-state survey. And it's the results of that that you see in the materials that are somewhere in this room, the executive summary there. And what we found, like I mentioned, 48 states have a constitutional provision, 28 states have an anti-private militia provision in their statutes, 25 states have an anti-paramilitary act statute on their books, and 12 states have a false assumption statute. And these statutes are remarkably similar state to state. And every state has at least one of these things. So every state has an ability to look to their own laws and forward-looking use these to prepare for upcoming rallies or demonstrations that might be of a nature where you could expect potential violence. So for example, if a state through its permitting process wants to use some of its own statutes or a local jurisdiction, I should say, wants to use statutes of the state as a basis for reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on the activities that can take place during the demonstration, well, then they've got that tool knowing what the statute is that's in their particular state. And even if a jurisdiction doesn't have a permitting process because some jurisdictions don't require permits for demonstrations, they can still, if they know about an event in advance, they can put restrictions on what kind of items may be brought into particular geographic area where the demonstration is to take place and what kind of activities can occur. Is it a perfect response? It's not perfect, but it's one way to, we think, to sort of ratchet down the potential for violence when you have sort of highly controversial demonstrations and others where you have that potential. And it was in furtherance of this activity, again, this research that we eventually did this 50-state survey, but even before we got to the 50 states when we just had Virginia right after we filed our case in Charlottesville, we heard about a White Lives Matter rally that was planned for two cities in Tennessee, Shelbyville and Murfreesboro for the end of October. So we quickly took a look at what did Tennessee have in the books, found they have a constitutional provision, they have an anti-paramilitary activity provision, and looked up who was the mayor, who was the city manager, sent an email, and that led us to talking to Adam. Thank you, Mary. That's exactly right. As they were preparing to file their lawsuit on behalf of the city of Charlottesville, we in Middle Tennessee were preparing for two White Lives Matter rallies in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, and the primary organizer was the League of the South, which is one of the defendants in the lawsuit. And we, the attorneys for both Shelbyville and Murfreesboro reached out to ICAP based on their suggestion of the similar statutes in Tennessee and Virginia. And the timing of the contact of bringing us together could not have been better, it was about two weeks before the events. And what I think what was really important for us and what was really helpful for us was addressing issues about the potential for violence outside of where the event was going to take place. By two weeks before the event, law enforcement had developed a really good plan for securing and maintaining peace within the event locations, both in Shelbyville and in Murfreesboro. But the issue was, and what you saw in Charlottesville and what we were really concerned about was where most of the violence took place was different groups intermingling on their way to and they're on their way from the event location. And so in discussions with Josh and Mary and others at ICAP, we figured out a way about how we could take the statutes that exist on the books in Tennessee and basically incorporate them in the special event permit that was issued by the city of Murfreesboro and by Rutherford County, which is, Murfreesboro is the county seat for Rutherford County. And make it a reasonable time place and manner regulation that preserved and protected the rights of the League of the South and people who supported them to protest and voice their views and protected the First Amendment rights of people who disagreed with them to also make their views known, but in a way that also protected and promoted public safety. And what we did is based on these statutes is what we put in the permit was an explicit prohibition on paramilitary type activity anywhere in the vicinity of the event. Or, and we went even a little bit broader than that, to any location that could be reasonably associated with the event that was taking place in the public square in Murfreesboro. And the language that we put in that prohibition traced the statutes, the language of the statutes in Tennessee where, which was, we prohibited coordinated activity by armed individuals who were acting to escort patrol or protect or otherwise safeguard property or people. We prohibited activity, coordinated activity by two or more individuals that created an unreasonable risk of damage to property or to personal injury or death. And we prohibited activity that is ordinarily and customarily associated with a government law enforcement or military activity. Ultimately, what happened was the event in Charlottes, or the event in Shelbyville took place. There was about 200 demonstrators who affiliated with the League of the South and other alt-right and nationalist groups. And there was also about 400 counter demonstrators. The plan had been for, at least as we understood it, that the League of the South and their supporters would tear a van from Shelbyville, 25 miles north to Murfreesboro. And they would have their event in Murfreesboro in the afternoon. Well, the League of the South never arrived in Murfreesboro. There were only about 30, at most, there were 30 lone wolf demonstrators in the part of the public square that had been reserved for the League of the South. There were about 800 to 1,000 counter demonstrators in the area that was reserved for people who wanted to demonstrate against the League of the South. I don't know what role this prohibition on paramilitary activity played in preventing them from coming, if it did it all, but it was certainly a success, the event. There was no, in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, there was no damaged property. There were no injuries. And in Shelbyville, there was only one arrest and that was of a counter demonstrator who went and decided to confront the people associated with the League of the South in the area that had been reserved for the League of the South demonstration. Thanks, Adam. Sure. We talked back in the green room about some of the excellent reports that ADL is working on and also just come out with, but you maybe just, from an advocacy standpoint, give us a sense of what ADL is doing in this space. Sure. So thinking about my role in the U.S. to all of us in it, so the discussion started with the conversation related to and what is the interpretation of the law where it exists and how can they be used to protect humanity and individuals in this country while preserving civil rights, delivery, and real treatment of stress. And we saw a real life application in one or more cities in the New York system that's not the most well-known city in America, but Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And I'm an Ohioan, so I can affiliate with that in a small town in the West, but what is the application for what? So I'm fortunate in that after about a dozen years in government working on issues related to I guess maybe your mic's not working. Issues related to national security, counter-terrorism, and specific violent extremism. I'm now in a role at the Anti-Defamation League that has had a hundred-year kind of history and mission tracking and examining and researching issues of anti-Semitism, extremism, bigotry, bias-based crimes, and incidences across the country. So a few things to contribute and then Bellamy, if it's okay, maybe we'll just open it up for Q and A. So a few things to discuss. The first key point to this conversation is the discussion we've been having today is about a series of whether it's in Virginia or whether it's in Tennessee, real-world incidents. Places where people and things came together. People, vehicles, guns, assembly, but there's also a conversation in which this type of dynamic is also happening in the online space as well. There is bullying, there is intimidation, there is trolling to pick up on a term that Adam used. So this is a real dynamic that is happening both online and offline. And we have a small unit at the ADL that's called our Center on Extremism, which is a group of investigators and researchers which tracks these issues, real-time 24-7, both online and offline across the country and really across the globe to contribute to a broader sense of advocacy and public discourse. We recently, about four weeks ago, we put out an annual report that we call Murder and Extremism in the United States and I wanted to share some of those statistics with you today to put what happened in Murfreesboro or in Virginia and really the excellent analysis that's in the report in terms of the laws and statutes that are on the books in all 50 states. Let me put this in context in terms of some of the data and statistics that we're seeing today. So last year, calendar year 2017 was the fifth deadliest year in extremist violence since 1970. And let me just start out with a definitional issue when we're talking about violent extremism, we're talking about ideologically motivated violence. That means whether it's a neo-Nazi or what supremacist group or whether that's an Islamist foreign terrorist organization and we're talking about ideologically motivated violence. So what we saw in 2017 was far right extremist violence increased significantly from 2016 to 2017 with an additional 20 deaths. So there were 34 murders committed or homicides committed in 2017 which led it to be the fifth deadliest year since 1970. The number of white supremacist murders more than doubled from 2016 to 2017. Far right extremist violence not only increased but again had 20 more deaths and accounted for 59, nearly 60% of the total of extremist related homicides or murders in 2017 than it did in 2016. And I could go on, this report was recently published online, we can share a link to it and connect it via social media but a couple key points to make in closing and then we can open it up for question and answer. Tomorrow the Anti-Defamation League is releasing an audit of anti-Semitic incidents across the country. And while you may be asking the question, okay anti-Semitism, extremism, what's the connection here? Whether we're talking about the incident in Virginia and Charlottesville, whether we're talking about what we're seeing in Murfreesboro is there is an underlying theme of anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant xenophobia that's all part of this broader dialogue that we're seeing both real world in person at these events and offline as well and it can't be ignored and needs to be addressed by both civil society organizations as well as federal, state and local government actors. Point two is that we saw a significant increase last year in the amount of anti-Semitic incidents across the country. Nearly in over a thousand count increase in incidents totaling about a 41% increase from 16 to 17 in anti-Semitic incidents. So while the numbers increased, we saw the percentage increase. It's part of this underlying tone. Part of I think this conversation is not just to talk about what the analysis of the problem is is to really get towards the solution. I think the good folks at Georgetown have laid out a clear kind of legal map to get to what are the tools and resources that can be used from a jurisdictional standpoint to leverage the power of both local, state and federal laws. I think we saw a great example of how that's been used here in Murphysboro and my contribution to this conversation is really the role of civil society and helping bring together whether it's federal, state or local, religious communities and others because there are a number of underlying very troubling patterns and trends that we see affecting the Jewish community, the Muslim community, broader Latino or immigrant communities in the US and we need to be very real and sober about what that threat means and the solutions that can be brought to bear. So if that's okay, I'll stop there. Great, thanks. I just wanna ask, start with one broad question. I'm actually gonna use three examples and this is for Josh, Mary and Adam. A few years ago I was back home in Southeast Michigan and I went downtown Detroit to a restaurant called Slode's Barbecue Restaurant. I love it, George probably knows it. And I took my nephew and my niece with me and in front of the old Detroit train station which is this massive building, there were about 15 men armed with shotguns and rifles and pistols and police were there and being the proactive concerned citizen I am, I went up to the police and I said, is this legal? And they said they are exercising their first and second amendment rights. I said okay. I've recently, just last week I was in Phoenix and I met with the police officers in Phoenix to ask them about anti-muslim activities at the local level and they said on the whole, other than one protest, it's been okay and I said, could you tell me about the protest? They said a group of armed men exercised the same language, exercising their first and second amendment rights, went to a local mosque and stood there with anti-muslim signs and I thought, is that legal? And I've been going back and forth to Houston where I'm getting ready to launch a major study looking at Muslim communities at the local level there and to my dismay, I've learned about pig races that have happened in front of some of the mosques where men come out on Friday prayer and do pig races to scare, intimidate, bully, visually, optically and some of these guys are armed with rifles and guns and I asked the police I said, is this legal? And they gave me the same response that they are exercising their first and second amendment rights and so I guess hearing what this excellent report that you've launched and some of the two or more people, a militia and just I guess I'm thinking definitionally what, how do we understand militias? Is it just that folks don't know at the local level across the country that some of these activities are illegal or is it more complicated than that? And so I'd love to hear from both of you as legal experts from a national level but I'd also like to hear from Adam how you all viewed this because the other sort of subtext that I heard in the three different examples I use when talking to police officials was that well, not only are they exercising their rights but we don't want to magnify this in a way that's going to lead to bigger problems and so I'd love to hear from you all about this three very different contexts one before Charlottesville and well the other two have happened I think before Charlottesville it sounds like they're still thinking about it through a very different angle. So I think that what you say doesn't really surprise me because I think that a lot of the statutes and provisions that we've identified in this catalog frankly are not very well known and it would depend state to state what is on the books and what the specific facts are but just to step back for a second to look at what you've identified like I mentioned earlier there are a couple of different types of state statutes most of the constitutional provisions of course date back to whenever the state came into being and got its first constitution but one of the other types of statutes not the one that exists in Virginia but one that's in 28 states is an anti-private militia statute and this exists in 28 states and it was passed really sort of right after the civil war as a response to not having as you might imagine private militias rising up after the civil war and this particular statute has been upheld by the Supreme Court in the late 1800s in a case called Preserville, Illinois and what it prohibits is groups of people organizing as military units and parading or drilling while armed so that's the statute that was relied on in Texas in the case in the 80s against the KKK and also one like that was relied on in North Carolina so in some situations depending on the particular facts that may or may not have been applicable. Let me just, so if 10 or 15 or 20 men show up and they're not drilling or training but they're armed and they're protesting whatever is that, does that fall into a gray area? So I wanna be careful in how we talk about how we would analyze these different laws because we are in active litigation right now but I think every, the devil is always in the details and I think it would depend very much on exactly what they're doing at the time and I know you said they're protesting but are they doing in any kind of way that's inciting violence? Are they, they're holding their weapons in any kind of way that's in threat, that is threatening or intimidating or that appears that they're ready to use the weapons. These are various things you would look at. I'm not sure parading or drilling would be what you would characterize those particular examples at and let me just throw one more dot on the map. The statute that we were relying on in Virginia and also in Tennessee was a slightly different statute and this is the one that barons the paramilitary activity and one important point of that statute is while it bars two or more people from practicing more training or demonstrating techniques that could cause injury or violence, it also requires it to be done in furtherance of a civil disorder so it has to be some sort of civil disorder either going on or that they are training to be a part of. So they're, as I said, devil is in the details but I think it's a real, I think that what you're hearing from police departments is not surprising because there's been so much emphasis over the last decades really of First Amendment rights and Second Amendment rights that I think a lot of these other provisions have sort of been forgotten. Just to add to that, on the tactical, I think Mary nailed it on the complexity but also how we see the legal issue. On the tactical point that you also brought up about police feeling like well, if we engage then are we calling more attention or we're still actually gonna generate a firefight? I mean, a couple of thoughts on that. One, that's part of the problem, right? When police fear that enforcing the law will generate violence, you have a situation that is already out of control and in our view beyond what the law, these sorts of laws permit. Once you are the police and you're already late morning that day in Charlottesville, it is a very difficult situation to navigate given the weaponry that's there, not to mention these weapons are being carried by some folks with their fingers on the trigger. So that is itself what you want to avoid which leads me to the second point which is it's probably a communication issue. We tried to do our little part in communicating and so far as we released this report, we're delighted to get to talk about it here. We also sent it directly to all 50 attorneys general across the country saying please be aware of this, please share it with smaller jurisdictions in your state and please tell us if we can help you work through it. But to avoid getting to that point, Murphy's Brothers had a terrific example. They made clear ahead of time what wouldn't be permitted. The list of what wouldn't be permitted was 50 something, it was 53 items. 53 items so that League of the South knew exactly what the law was when they showed up rather than the weapons are there, the people are there, there's an armed police force or other sort of armed force and now where does the confrontation go? Before I turn it over to Adam and Josh, could you just, of the 50 if you can share or would like to share, of the 50 attorney generals that you reached out to, what was the response? I mean, was it, were folks? Yeah. We got a few who go back right away saying thanks for sharing this, we're gonna review it, one said we're gonna assemble a team. Have a task force to look at it, which exceeded our expectations I would say. But I'm not sure we expected to hear back right away. We've also heard from some smaller entities, smaller than at the state level. I don't know if they got it from their state attorney general or just saw publicity on it, who've reached out saying we have things that have concerned us in the past and we just like to generally open a line of communication so that if we have a center happening again we can be in touch and Mary's corresponded with a couple of them to flesh out our sense of the laws applicable to their jurisdiction. You all reached out proactively and I mean to Josh's excellent point. Can you just talk a little bit about what was going on on the ground were you all concerned about any potential blowback from trying to get out in front of this to the point that you said by the time they're showing up in the morning it you know the train left so to speak in Charlottesville so just maybe a little bit more about what happened. Sure to a certain extent the ability of a local government, local law enforcement to control whether someone or a group of people is showing up at an event with weapons depends on whether the local authorities know the event is going to take place. So the event that you were describing sound like spontaneous events where no one told the police hey we're gonna be demonstrating here. But in Charlottesville and in Shelbyville and Murphy's borough the event organizers contacted local authorities in advance. And so from the local authority standpoint that gave put us in a position where we could coactively control what types of things were gonna be brought in to the event location. So we knew where the event was going to occur and we had several weeks to plan for the event. And I had spoken before about law enforcement in Murphy's borough and Shelbyville had done a really good job of planning, making planning for the event location itself and making sure it was secure. And what Tennessee has a statute on the books with respect to firearms that says that you can prohibit firearms on local government property if you do three things. One, you have a sign that meets the explicit requirements set forth in the statute that says firearms are prohibited. Two, that you have security checkpoints at every entrance to the public property. And that anyone going into that public area has to go through those checkpoints. And three, that those checkpoints are staffed with people trained to use handheld or metal detectors to detect weapons. And so that is what Shelbyville and Murphy's borough did for the event location. So we were extremely confident that we were not going to have weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon in the rally site. Now, if that hit it and the other thing is not only was that included in the permit that was issued to the League of the South, but both Shelbyville and Murphy's borough released this long list of items that were gonna be prohibited to the press and made it public several days in advance of the event. Just to interject here, what was your enormous pushback when you had released the sort of, the rules of the protests, so to speak? I mean, did the League of the South say, no way, we have a second amendment right? No. Why not? Because I would expect that they would have been quite animated over this. Because I think with respect to the weapon, the at least three US courts of appeal have upheld this type of measure as a reasonable time place and manner. The Second Circuit, the Sixth Circuit, and the Seventh Circuit. And Tennessee is located in the Sixth Circuit. George, I just want to turn to you. You mentioned the number, which is quite troubling, 34 homicides. And the ADL does some excellent work looking at online activity and just thinking about how hate spreads from online to real-world activity. Obviously, this is a terribly complicated issue, but do you have any sense of where online activity connects people and mobilizes people for all kinds of things, good, bad, and evil? But is there any thought or analysis going into how hate is spreading from online to real-world activity? And what can be done to try and combat that? So great question. I mean, this is really the venue or the platform for both connection and collaboration. I mean, what you saw in this country's history with going back to the 9-11 Commission Report that kind of details how Al-Qaeda plotted and planned and convened cells and groups of people to commit an act of terrorism against the United States. And even prior to that, this week, for Chris Costa probably remembers this, but I think today or tomorrow is the anniversary of the first World Trade Center bombing. I mean, as we're in a country that has dealt with terrorism in various ways, shapes, and form in the past 50 years. And the way that terrorists, either domestic or international, plot and plan their attacks or methods of intimidation, has taken on different life forms. There's been phones, there's been fax machines. Today, in the world of the dark web and encrypted communications and other means, that's where the connectivity is happening. And so what we see, what ADL has done a lot of tracking on, is these convenings, whether in Murphysboro or Shelbyville or Charlottesville, these are instances in time where the number of these people physically come together. But it's magnified even 10 or 20-fold in where violent extremists and people with very radical ideologies come together online to discuss issues of bigotry, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and so on. So the online platforms and social media have really become the new platform for these ideas to both be connected and exchanged. And what we see is it's really the vehicle for which a lot of both recruitment and radicalization takes place. Just to add to what George said, a few people have thought harder about this. George, Mary, and our colleague and friend, Chris here on. But the online and the physical, they build on each other, right? That was part of what was interesting about and concerning about Charlottesville, right? There was this activity, more than many of us tracked or realized among white supremacist groups. And then they had a place to show up and were surprised that they did show up, in a sense. And that gave them so much to keep talking about. It also proved divisive in sort of interesting, weird ways, but it gave them fodder and material to re-energize, in a sense, those conversations that had once been only virtual. And that's troubling. I don't want this sort of activity to be energized in the physical world or online. Whereas you contrast that to something like the events in Tennessee, where law enforcement does its job, facilitates speech, and also ensures public safety is looked out for. And there's less to talk about after that. There's less to kind of go back and cheerlead, so to speak. And that's how the physical and the virtual build on each other or don't provide fodder to build on each other. I think if you don't mind, one point of the point I'd add there too. This was very purposeful, as is alleged in our law students, an extensive complaint, 95 pages of factual detail. This was very purposeful to jump from the internet off into the real world. I mean, the groups that organized this, this was their intent. They wanted to show that we have might. We're not just a bunch of memes. We're not just an online presence. We will really show up and we will, and it was also intentional to be violent, to provoke violence. I mean, there's thanks to good work of various internet-based groups that have been able to put out for public consumption a lot of the planning communications that took place before the rally. We know that the organizers very much planned for people to be, you know, use their shields as offensive weapons, as shield walls to break through the counter protesters violently. They wanted to have such a presence, such an intimidating presence that they would provoke the counter protesters into, you know, the starting ex-availants, throwing water bottles or the like so that they could then respond in kind, but many, many fold more dangerously and more violently and call itself defense. That was very purposeful in their planning communications. And so that's part of why we did the 50 States Survey. I mean, it's different from the examples you gave because this was a concerted effort for these groups to demonstrate their physical might and to show that they could have that kind of mass, that many people, they could intimidate the way they did. And what happened with Shelbyville and Murfreesboro is, frankly, when their props got taken from them, when they couldn't have their banners and their shields and their helmets and their clubs and bets and batons and engage in their paramilitary activity, it wasn't gonna be a good look for them. They were gonna be outnumbered by counter protesters. They weren't gonna be able to be as intimidating. And frankly, they didn't bother to go to Murfreesboro and do that. And so, you know, I think it's important. I mean, George is exactly right. Everybody's talked about that, that online presence, but it was important for them, I think at this point in time to show that they were more than online. And what we know from, you know, that's what caused, I think people were surprised to see shawls, but we've never seen anything like that before. Well, at least not for decades. And that's kind of got us thinking, well, what are the tools we can use to prevent it? And that's why Murfreesboro, I think, was a great success. Thank you. If we could open it up now for questions. Please state your name and your affiliation. My name is Michael Garcia. I'm with the National Governors Association. I'm actually hoping, leading a project where I'll be working with five states to implement a counter-involving extremism strategy, looking at whole approach, ideological and neutral. It's one of the DHSCVE grants. And one thing that I've been asking a lot of people when I talk to practitioners was that at the Charlottesville you saw a few states introduce legislation that kind of targeted these far right groups. And I'm curious as to if there were any gaps that you saw doing this research that you thought that paramilitary groups could probably take advantage of if they were to look at it thoroughly. And whether or not there can be more legislation, or if you would, I guess, suggest for states to introduce legislation to kind of cover up those gaps. And also curious as to how the Braydenberg test falls into line with all your research. So just curious as to that line. Really questions for all four of you. So we were probably reluctant to engage quite publicly on any gaps because I don't think our instinct could be to provide a roadmap, if you will. That being said, part of what the catalog I think demonstrates is there are forms of these tools available to every state, which is reassuring that there is not an across the board yet. We actually have maps in there and it shows that depending on which tool you look at it, if you put them all together, there are states have aspects of this, either all or at least some at their disposal, which is a reassuring thing. That being said, we do think there's room for clarity and have talked to a couple jurisdictions that are considering trying to beef up what they already have and would be delighted to be a resource for you along the way, if we can be helpful. It's important work that you're doing. Glad you're doing it. We'd love to be useful if we can. The one thing I guess I would add, and I'm stressed too, I don't want to identify too many gaps here, but I do think it's important as states or legislators consider additional legislation to not, there tends to be a focus on use of firearms. As we saw in Charlottesville, certainly the self-professed militia, they carried firearms, but the alt-right groups, the groups that frankly opposed the huge threat and that really caused what essentially was an invasion of this community were bearing clubs and baths and batons and they had reinforced their flag poles to have the dual purpose as spears and some of them may also have concealed small sidearms, but they were not the ones with AR-15. I think it's important to keep in mind that this sort of armed nature and this dangerous nature of the activity doesn't necessarily have to be firearm-based. And this might be a little bit of a diversion from your question, but in terms of other legislation and the gap that I don't mind talking about is, and I know this is something George probably has thoughts about as well, I am an advocate for a federal domestic terrorism offense. There is no federal domestic terrorism criminal offense. There is a definition of domestic terrorism that's in the federal code, but it doesn't have offense with it. And I'm an advocate not because there aren't adequate criminal statutes out there to punish most acts of domestic terrorism because most acts of domestic terrorism. And by that I mean acts that are not only violent acts that take place in the United States, but also that aren't inspired by international foreign terrorist groups. If it's inspired by a foreign terrorist group, our US code and our government calls it international terrorism, even if it takes place here in the United States, Stake, Orlando, St. St. Bernardino. But if it's an act that's not motivated by allegiance to it or direction or inspiration by a foreign terrorist group, it's motivated by some other ideology here in the United States and domestically. It usually falls to state law, either state law murders or assaults or other kind of state law crimes. And that may give that person, that may be adequate to make sure the person who committed an act like a homicide or an assault is punished and has a long sentence. But what it doesn't do is it doesn't put it on that same sort of moral plane as a terrorism statute does. When we charge in this country an international terrorist with terrorism offense, it says to the world that this violent crime this person committed was done and we've shown that it was done we because I was in the government for a very long time. And it's been proved that it was done with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the actions of a government. And domestic terrorists do it for the same type reasons. It's not foreign terrorism inspired, it's for their own ideological purposes. And when they commit a violent act for those ideological purposes, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't also become a federal crime. Kind of like hate crimes are. I would not create a material support crime, I don't think, for domestic terrorism because that involves designating the rest of domestic terrorist organizations and all kinds of controversies that would come with that. But in terms of a violent crime committed, that's something that's in violation of state or federal law already, like murder and other violent assaults done with that mental purpose of coercing or intimidating a population or a government, that should be a federal crime. I think one thing that, and I'm not really sure if this is an issue with a gap in terms of there needs to be new legislation or whether it's education about the legislation that is cited and reviewed in the catalog is how to handle the spontaneous events like those that Banu was describing. And I think it's a difficult issue. Where does that group of five, 10, 15 individuals standing on a street corner armed and it's a spontaneous event? When does that cross the line from exercising first and second amendment rights to violating one of these paramilitary activity prohibitions? So I think part of it, maybe law enforcement is not, could be more familiar with these statutes and how to enforce them with the spontaneous events, though there could be a solution in terms of new legislation that would draw maybe a brighter line as to when you're crossing for one constitutional protected activity to something that is not. Just to follow up, and I'm not an expert on the three different cities I mentioned, but getting 10 or 15 men to show up somewhere with armed is not, in my mind, spontaneous. I mean, it really isn't. It might not be as well organized as Charlottesville or White Lives Matters movements that we saw in Tennessee, but that's why I ask because it's spontaneous to you guys, maybe, but I'm 10, 15 is, somebody got online or somebody got on the phone and said, hey, let's go down to the local mosque or let's go down to wherever. So I just don't know, but that's why I had asked that question because they're not Charlottesville, but they're certainly not spontaneous in my mind. And your example of the pig race, I mean, that seems pretty clearly gone to intimidate. So there's a difference there between other types of demonstrations for sure. And I'm probably not using a precise definition of spontaneous in the sense of public authorities, law enforcement authorities know about the event in advance as opposed to, you're exactly right, those 10 or 15 individuals had probably planned it for weeks that they were gonna go and do that type of activity. Other questions? David. Thanks. David Skerman here at New America. My question regards the theory of how this violence is bubbling up. Seems that the sort of theory that restricting militia groups relies upon is that most of the violence is coming out of a more organized aspect, yet it seems that a lot of the actual, at least deadly, if not the street fighting violence comes out of the coups, the people who have been kicked out of their militia, who are on the outskirts. Are you worried that restricting militias will actually increase that level of lack of organization and violence? And I'm thinking of examples like the Las Vegas shooters who got kicked out of the Bundy Ranch but didn't get reported by them. But they weren't organized by the Bundy Ranch or even the Charlottesville death wasn't really so much organized. It was something that could have easily occurred without that context, as we saw outside the Finnsbury Mosque in Britain with another car attack. I'd like to spread that out for your response. I'm happy to. Sorry, I'm sorry. Just to begin, in fact, with Mary who said before, this is not a perfect solution and there are ways, I think, that we collectively, beds, state, civil society, et cetera, can do better, at least, at some of the individual acts of violence, sometimes horrific violence. But I do think that this type of private paramilitary rogue army activity is a tremendous problem. As tragic as the weekend in Charlottesville was with one counter-protester dying, two folks dying in the helicopter crash and many, many injuries, some quite bad. It is, in some ways, remarkable that it wasn't far worse. The amount of weaponry that was packed into a very small area with emotions running extremely high, that really understates what it was, it could have turned out just horrifically in terms of an immense number of deaths and even worse injuries. And at the crux of that, not all of it, but at the crux of the danger that that posed and that I think events in which private paramilitaries would pose similar dangers, is this idea that there's an organization there with folks who showed up that morning purporting to report to a commanding officer, purporting to patrol the perimeter of a square to be in formation. And when that gets taken into private hands, when that's what people think they are entitled to do in the public square, and I mean that both generically but also quite literally, it was public squares that day, there's a huge amount of danger in that. And the idea that that can escalate quickly strikes me as distinctive and kind. And to turn to the example in Tennessee when you're able to get those, even if it is the same groups to show up but without that private paramilitary element, then what you have is speech and counter-speech. And you have people exchanging ideas, some of which some of us may find more hateful, some of us may find less hateful, whatever it is, it's exchange of ideas and that seems to me where you want organized groups to be and where you want the government to have push things where there's expression, counter-expression if there are those who disagree, but not an organized clash because that's what you had in Charlottesville. I agree, clearly, well said. But you're right, it doesn't get to the individual and that's gonna take some other work. Come on in the back. Eric Sarnsson with FBI and currently at the State Department. So you have 28 states that prohibit unauthorized private militias. You have a sense of how difficult is it to become an authorized militia in those states? I can't really speak to the, to what the membership rules in all the 28 states. I know that in Virginia, for example, there's an entire section of the code that talks about the various types of authorized militia. There's the National Guard and then there's some other levels, including something called the unorganized militia. And I thought at first, well, maybe that's what allows for private militias, but it doesn't. It is the ability of the governor to call or the governor's designee to call on able-bodied citizens of Virginia to come in defense of the state as needed. But again, always under that reporting structure up through the governor. And that makes sense when you think of it under the constitutional provision. I mentioned at the beginning of this talk that says in all cases the military shall be under the strict subordination of the civilian government. So now, whether it's possible for a private militia organization to call up the governor in any one of these 28 states and say, hey, you've got this rally, we're a militia. We've been training in some private land somewhere and would you like us to augment your National Guard? I suppose it would be up to the laws of that state and the governor's discretion about whether to accept that. But if he did so, then it would no longer be private. It would be under the authority of the civil government. One related question we sometimes get asked is about private security contractors. And again, Virginia law has a scheme for licensing those, regulating those, the type of thing, the type of thing that you'd want to see when folks are bearing those sorts of weapons and taking on that sort of role. And that exists within Virginia, Tennessee, the statutes are virtually identical. Even down through the wording. Any final questions? Hi, my name is Jack Kropansky, I'm an affiliate. Could you just clarify the distinction between an unauthorized private militia and a paramilitary, what's it, paramilitary activity in the sense that Virginia doesn't have a prohibition of unauthorized private militia. Because they do have the paramilitary. The catalog has sort of the different types of statutes. First, there's the constitutional provision which is that strict subordination provision which 48 states have. Then there are two primary types of anti-military or anti-paramilitary ex-statute. One is the statutes that we are calling in there just to put a label on it, anti-private militia statute. Because those are the statutes that prohibit groups organizing as a military unit, bearing arms while parading, drilling, et cetera. That's the statute was used against KKK, it was upheld in Illinois back in the 1800s. Then the separate statute which we're calling in there, the anti-paramilitary activity statute, is that sort of training, teaching, demonstrating or practicing in use of a firearm and explosive or just even a technique that can cause injury to person or property and to do so in furtherance of a civil disorder. It's just two different sets of statutes. And it's interesting because that first type that anti-private militia is the one I mentioned earlier, kind of those came into being after the Civil War in restoration. And then the anti-paramilitary statutes tend to be late 70s, really when there was a rise in KKK activity in this country, which is what caused many states to pass those statutes. I just wanted to follow up with one quick question. You had mentioned earlier from your, for your part that you thought or you think it would be potentially a good idea to have a factor of domestic law in the books. Why don't we have one? Will we have one? Is there enormous pushback within the Justice Department, just for those of us that are not legal experts? So I'm not there anymore. But when I was there, we were working in the National Security Division on language for a domestic terrorism statute that was being circulated among other agencies. Now, when there's a new administration that process has to start over, certainly, like I said, talk about material support in the domestic context would have a lot of controversy and a lot of people probably not supporting it. But I think that there is more support probably for the type of domestic terrorism statute that I'm suggesting, which is a violent crime and tied to that, the intent that is the same type of intent that the federal code requires for an international terrorism statute. So I'm hopeful that'll happen. And you know, there's another reason, besides sort of this immoral equivalency where I think it makes sense. And part of it's for keeping of data. And this is something I know George is very, and Judge are very impressed, very familiar with, which is that part of the reason we have very accurate data on international terrorism incidents in this country is because those all do funnel through the Bureau and through the National Security Division at DOJ. You can't actually charge an international terrorism case without coming through DOJ. But domestic terrorism, we just don't have, I mean, we rely more on organizations like ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center, most for that data, on domestic terrorism cases because there's no requirement that these come in through the Bureau or through DOJ. And so, and you might say, well, that's record keeping, but it's actually really important because how do you respond kind of in a national way if you don't have a really good sense about what the scope of the problem is? And George, you're right. Spana, Mary Spana. Well, we are, we've just about reached our time. I wanna thank everybody for coming, but I especially wanna thank Josh, Mary, George, and Adam. We, I suspect we're gonna be seeing at least Josh, Mary, and George because they're based here. We'd love to have you back as well, Adam. But in fact, I think it was a month ago or so that Josh and Mary were here on a related topic talking about online hate. Yeah. And we'll be back when you roll out your report. Yes, we will. So we are very, very interested and concerned here at New America, as are my colleagues on stage with how hate spreads and how online builds with offline. But I wanna thank you all for coming and please join me in giving a very warm thank you to our panelists. Thank you. Thank you.