Definitions, a thread.
1) Militia: a group that uses paramilitary weapons, training, and activism in articulation of local sovereignty and in opposition to the federal government. Not neutral. Sometimes, but not always, affiliated with overtly racist activism.

2) Vigilante: an actor that articulates popular sovereignty through violence (the violence is political and works in support of systemic or status quo power, at local, state, or national level).

3) Revolutionary: an actor that uses radical or violent mechanisms AGAINST systemic power and/or to overthrow the state.

4) Militias have, at various moments, worked BOTH as vigilante groups and as revolutionary groups. Many militia groups have attempted overthrow of the federal government through ties with white power activism

5) Unlike a gang, militias are typically not interested in criminal profiteering. However, white power groups have been. There are white power gangs and white power militias. It helps to ask what the objective of the violence is.

6) Relatedly, white power groups AND militias, the first from the late 1970s on and the latter from the late 1980s on, are BOTH characterized by paramilitarism

7) Paramilitarism simply means the appearance of military-style things (weapons, uniforms, language, tactics, and violence) outside of the military. Paramilitarism is a phenomenon that has impacted multiple spheres of our society and culture

8) Militias, white power groups, & police departments using military-grade weapons, tactics, language, and violence, are all examples of paramilitarism (so are paintball courses & first-person shooter video games: examples are manifold and stretch from culture to IRL violence)

9) Extralegal violence can refer to any violence that stretches beyond that claimed by the state, and includes police shootings that go beyond rules of engagement, criminal violence, militia violence, white power violence, vigilante violence, revolutionary violence.

11) Popular sovereignty, above, is the idea that the power to rule is located in "the people" rather than "the state." It's part of what people refer to when they talk about American exceptionalism.

**) Death squad usually refers to a paramilitary police or military unit that implements extralegal violence, usually against a targeted group, and has not been widely used in the U.S. context.

**) "Domestic terrorism" is hotly contested. Sometimes it refers to the allocation of surveillance resources, &/or to specific legal penalties. But extrajudicial political violence, meant to intimidate a targeted group, can be considered domestic terrorism.

**) One reason "domestic terrorism" is confusing is that it often overlaps with "hate crime." Hate crime refers to increased legal penalties allocated to a crime against a particular group/s. An act of violence can be a hate crime and domestic terrorism at the same time.