The reported leader of an ongoing effort to organize an armed militia to go to the Texas-Mexico border was an active participant in Open Carry Texas, the Second Amendment activist group that forced the National Rifle Association to issue a rare apology last month, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Chris Davis, the reported leader of the militia that encompasses many of the same groups that supported Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in his standoff with federal authorities, was cited by San Antonio police for disorderly conduct because he and two other men were openly carrying firearms outside a Starbucks last year, the newspaper reported. It identified him as a member of Open Carry Texas.
Open Carry Texas protesters became notorious in recent months for holding armed demonstrations at various restaurants and chain stores, as TPM has reported. The protests caused such controversy that the NRA issued a statement calling the protests “downright foolishness.”
The national gun lobby group later offered a rare public apology for its condemnation after Open Carry Texas members began cutting up their NRA membership cards.
Davis was also reportedly discharged from the U.S. Army in 2001 “under other than honorable conditions in lieu of trial by court martial.” Davis had served in the Army from 1996 to 2001. The Express-News reviewed a summary of his military service, which relayed those “other than honorable conditions” for the discharge, but did not provide more details.
Davis has been identified as the leader of Operation Secure Our Border. In a YouTube video that has since been taken down, he appeared to describe how the job would be done: “You see an illegal. You point your gun dead at him, right between his eyes, and you say, ‘Get back across the border or you will be shot.'”
Davis told KRGV in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, earlier this week that the militia had set up a command post in Von Ormy, Texas, a town of 1,000 that’s more than 100 miles from the border. He said that they would train and get organized there.
Davis declined to comment to the Express-News for its Thursday report on his Army service. A spokesperson for the budding militia told the newspaper that Davis had “gone black because of security threats.”
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