PERSECUTION OF PATRIOT DISTURBING

Feds Target 60-Year-Old Militiaman For Stance on Second Amendment

By Ralph Forbes

Why is the government afraid of a retired, overweight, elderly man with respiratory problems?

At the bond hearing for Hollis Wayne Fincher, known as “the gentlegiant,” the federal court conceded it was at heart a free speech case—but from the government’s standpoint Fincher had uttered “scary” free speech, so his bond was set at $250,000, equal to the deed to his 120-acre homestead, which has been in his family for three generations.

Fincher has been accused by the federal government of possessing three illegal machine guns. However, many believe the case has more to do with Fincher’s writings and beliefs than it does any firearms he owned.

Yes, it is a First Amendment case, the inalienable rights to freedom of speech, assembly and petition. But it is equally a Second Amendment case, securing the God-given right of self-defense, which protects every American from having his or her right to keep and bear arms from being infringed by the government.

In the spirit of America’s patriots of 1776, in 1994 Fincher and others founded the Arkansas Militia, realizing that the fundamental right to protect all other rights is the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Recognizing that the best security of a free people lies in the people, not the government, Fincher wrote The Silver Bullet, a treatise showing that infringements upon this basic right stem from the poison tree of unconstitutional perversions of law.

The Arkansas Militia then sent copies of this nearly 300- page elucidation to Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) and a host of other officials, including county sheriffs, to educate them on the law of the land.

No one said it wasn’t correct.

On March 18, 2006, The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas published an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) approved story on Fincher, The Silver Bullet, and other patriots.

Mark Pitcavage, a Columbus, Ohio-based “fact-finder” for the ADL, an unregistered agent of Israel, said the ADL “monitors” Americans that it deems “potentially dangerous,” especially if they have “extreme views” and/or are “heavily armed.”

The ADL was particularly concerned about the Washington County Militia, Fincher and The Silver Bullet. So eight months later, on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) and FBI, aided and abetted by Arkansas State Police, the Arkansas State Bomb Squad, the sheriffs of Washington and Madison counties and the police departments of Fayetteville and Springdale, raided Fincher’s home and arrested the 60-year-old man.

The raid was committed under color of the federal “gun violence prevention program,” the so-called Project Safe Neighborhoods.

Fincher’s bond hearing was held in the Ft. Smith, Ark., federal courthouse, under a gold-fringed flag and with a swearing-in that failed to include “so help me God.”

ATF Senior Special Agent Wade Vittitow testified that Fincher’s arrest was the result of the Morning News article, which the government submitted as Exhibit #1. He also testified that he “could not follow the logic” of the “dangerous” Silver Bullet.

Vittitow admitted Fincher had no criminal background, had never exhibited violent behavior, had lived on the family homestead all his life, and had family members close within the area. Nevertheless, the feds maintained the gentle giant was “a flight risk.”

Fincher did not trust the feds with the deed to his homestead, so he remains in jail “happily preaching Jesus” and the Constitution to his fellow prisoners. In the meanwhile the feds continue to catch and release illegal aliens.

The government doesn’t fear the gentle giant or his guns; they fear the power of his ideas for restoring our constitutional republic.

You can obtain a copy of his Silver Bullet by downloading it at arkansasmilitia.com.

(Issue #4, January 22, 2007)