Spotlight Casts Sobering Glare on U.S. Militias : OKLAHOMA CITY: AFTER THE BOMB : Simpler Times

In northwestern Pennsylvania, not far from where the world’s first commercial oil well was drilled, Bob Lord is the head of the Keystone Militia and he wants the world to know he has nothing in common with Mark Koernke, much less Timothy J. McVeigh or the elusive “John Doe No. 2.”

His members--Lord said only that they number somewhere between 50 and 500--do not meet regularly and do not dress up or play war games in the woods. Nor does he hold with the violent rhetoric of people such as Koernke.

A mold maker in a plastics factory, Lord is a quiet-spoken, thoughtful divorced man of 52 who sits on the county school board, belongs to the Christian Coalition and the National Rifle Assn., and classifies himself politically as a reluctant Republican. He is fond of quoting de Tocqueville, Jefferson and the Bible.

Lord traces his embrace of the militia back to his longstanding admiration for the Revolutionary War volunteers.

“I was born on Nathan Hale’s birthday. I am profoundly affected by that fact. ‘I regret that I have but one life to give for my country’--that was instilled in me, in my heart.”

What is needed to restore America’s greatness and to solve its social problems is “a return to a type of government and type of morality that America was founded upon,” he said.

“The values are, in a word, Christian values,” in Lord’s view. “As de Tocqueville says, America is great because America is good and, if America ever ceases to be good, it ceases to be great.

“Another way of putting it is that we’re standing our ground against socialism. Our government was designed to be as small and least intrusive as possible. That is what is motivating the militia movement--that government is taking control of our lives in every extent, so that we feel we are becoming a socialist country.”

“I know it’s overused, but we’re concerned about the future of America and what our children will inherit,” Lord said. “We see America as a nation with a lot of troubles, faltering and having lost our original vision, which was a nation governed by the people, with individual liberties and corresponding responsibilities.”

America is not safe today, Lord said. “Even in rural pockets there are serious drug problems and serious violence. To me it’s heartbreaking. I grew up in Warren. I’ve seen it go from a soft and gentle place to a harsh and dangerous place.”

What is needed is a return to the values of the past--”the spirit of the Minutemen, the spirit of the militia, the spirit of the Second Amendment, which encourages the citizens to be armed. That is what has kept America free.”

“The battle over gun control,” he said, “is a fight over people control. When I realized that, I became alarmed.”