Oregon's Legislature is considering a bill that experts say would create the nation’s most comprehensive law against paramilitary activity
FILE - Members of the far-right group Proud Boys and anti-fascist protesters spray bear mace at each other during clashes between the politically opposed groups in Portland, Ore., Aug. 22, 2021. Over the past decade, Oregon experienced the sixth-highest number of extremist incidents in the nation, despite being 27th in population, according to an Oregon Secretary of State report.
All 50 states prohibit private paramilitary organizations and/or paramilitary activity, but no other law creates civil remedies, said Mary McCord, an expert on terrorism and domestic extremism who helped craft the bill. The Oregon bill is also unique because it would allow people injured by private, unauthorized paramilitary activity to sue, she said.The bill’s sponsor, Rep.
The pioneering measure raises a host of issues, which lawmakers tried to parse in a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week: “This particular bill is not directed at individuals open-carrying. This is directed at armed, coordinated paramilitary activity,” added McCord, who is the executive director of Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
Under the proposed Oregon law, a paramilitary group could range from ones that wear uniforms and insignia, like the Three Percenters, to a handful of people who act in a coordinated way with a command structure to engage in violence, she added. “Our current inability to get upstream of this violence before it starts leaves us vulnerable to organized criminal elements who enter into a protest environment with the express intention of escalating the situation into an assault or arson or a riot,” Schmidt said.has warned“This bill as amended would be the most comprehensive statute to address unauthorized paramilitary activity that threatens civil rights,” she said.
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