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The 60-odd attendees 鈥� including bikers, gun enthusiasts, Oath Keepers and a few enterprising Girl Scouts selling cookies 鈥� heard from speakers that included prominent antigovernment extremists Richard Mack and Stewart Rhodes, and entered a raffle for which the grand prize was an AR-15.

It was pure coincidence that this rally, which the motorcycle/activist group RidersUSA (Riders United for a Sovereign America) puts on every year, went on in the shadow of a horrific school shooting. But most speakers in the lineup paid only cursory respect to the victims. They hastened to a matter of greater import: Not what the shooting means for the victims and their families, but what the shooting means for their guns. Even the RidersUSA chaplain, opening the event with a prayer, asked God only once to aid the victims. He spent the rest of the time asking God to not let this tragedy impact policy.

School teacher and former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack is prominent in the antigovernment movement as a leading proponent of the 鈥淐onstitutional Sheriff鈥� governing philosophy. This antigovernment extremist view holds that local sheriffs are the highest law in the land, and the ultimate executors of the Constitution inside their jurisdiction. Federal law enforcement, therefore, is subordinate to the sheriff鈥檚 authority. Mack founded the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, to promote this idea.

Mack famously opposes any and all gun control laws, and his absolutism was on full display at the rally as he suggested his own preference for dealing with mass shooters.

鈥淭here鈥檚 two sides here, complete gun confiscation and gun control,鈥� he told his cheering audience, 鈥渙r, we shoot the hell back!鈥�

In other words, Mack sees only two ways to end tragedies like the one in Florida: Either transforming America into a gun-free zone, or turning mass shootings into mass shootouts. Gun policy isn鈥檛 the only place where Mack rejects a happy medium. He also took a moment in his speech to lambaste traffic safety regulations. He said DUI checkpoints were illegal, and with a startling lack of perspective, compared them to 鈥淣azi checkpoints.鈥�

Mack is a teacher at a charter school in Arizona, and told Hatewatch last week that he鈥檚 not armed, and though he likes the idea of teachers being armed generally, he didn鈥檛 know if he personally wanted to be armed in class. Arming teachers, he said, is not the 鈥渙nly answer.鈥� In Phoenix, he was more open about his passion for firearms. He鈥檚 never been hunting in his life, he told the crowd, and would rather go golfing instead, but he has guns, 鈥渇or freedom.鈥�

Far right activist Alan Korwin followed Mack, and after opening with a plug for his latest book, dove right into his theories about what鈥檚 causing mass shootings 鈥� or mass murders, his preferred term. Korwin said 鈥渢he Left,鈥� comprised of 鈥渂ottom-feeding maggots,鈥� uses the term 鈥渟hooting鈥� and 鈥渟hooter鈥� 鈥� as opposed to 鈥渕urder鈥� or 鈥渕urderer鈥� 鈥� intentionally after events like Parkland to incriminate law-abiding American gun owners. His explanation for the tragic American phenomenon had nothing to do with guns. Instead, Korwin said, Big Pharma and the media 鈥� including the TV, movie, music and video game industries 鈥� were conspiring to 鈥減ropagandize and brainwash鈥� children into thinking that murder is acceptable. Korwin did not elaborate as to how such a diabolical plot would possibly benefit those interest groups.

He also said the news media shouldn鈥檛 spend so much time covering mass shootings. He even suggested the massacre of 17 Americans in a public school isn鈥檛 worthy of making the national news. A brief mention would be acceptable, he said, and then the anchors should move on to 鈥淢uslim jihadis training in Chad.鈥�

Stewart Rhodes spoke last. Rhodes is the founder of the largest radical antigovernment organization in the country, the Oath Keepers, which Rhodes said has had as many as 30,000 members. The group鈥檚 name comes from the oaths that law enforcement and military members take before they serve. Rhodes recruits heavily from these populations, and has members take a pledge of 10 鈥淥rders We Will Not Obey.鈥� That is, if a tyrannical federal government directs law enforcement or the military to violate citizens鈥� constitutional rights, Oath Keepers will refuse. These 10 orders, things like disarming all citizens or converting American cities into 鈥済iant concentration camps,鈥� reveal the out-of-touch conspiracy theories at the heart of the organization.

Rhodes told the audience that any governor or mayor who has declared their state or city a sanctuary is in 鈥渄irect insurrection against the laws of the Union.鈥� 鈥淭hey are all felons,鈥� Rhodes said, and urged Donald Trump to send in the National Guard and the 鈥渕ilitia,鈥� which he identified as Oath Keepers and similar privately organized groups, to bring them to heel. Coincidentally, that recommendation is in conflict with the fourth 鈥淥rder鈥� the Oath Keepers pledge not to obey: 鈥淲e will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a 鈥榮tate of emergency鈥� on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state鈥檚 legislature and governor.鈥� Rhodes also said immigrants crossing the southern border are part of a 鈥淐ommunist subversive invasion,鈥� a belief that may render the earlier pledge moot.

Finally, Rhodes shared his solution to the crisis of school shootings in the United States. He directed Oath Keepers in the audience, as well as any other gun-owning American, to bring their firearms to their local schools and offer their services as 鈥渟ecurity.鈥� If the staff is not amenable to that arrangement, or if state or local laws prohibit strangers with guns prowling inside schools, he advised them to 鈥減ost up鈥� as far away as the law requires. So far, at least one Oath Keeper . Mark Cowan, of Indiana, has been spending time parked just outside the grounds of a Fort Wayne high school with an AR-15, and he says he鈥檚 reached out to other Oath Keepers to get more people to join him.

In a statement, Fort Wayne Community Schools said of Cowan鈥檚 presence, 鈥淲e take the security of our schools very seriously. We understand he has a right to be out there, but we do not believe it adds to the safety of our students."

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