Violence. Let's talk about violence.

Remember when the propagandists were trying to tell you that Occupy Wall Street was violent and that the teabagger extremists are just a bunch of sweet old puddytats? Well, look at this. (The court documents are here.) Right-wing paranoia led a group of aging would-be mass-murderers to plan their own politicized version of Columbine...

Federal agents charged four Georgia men they say are part of a fringe militia group with plotting to attack government officials with explosives and the biotoxin ricin, prosecutors in Atlanta announced Tuesday.

"When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die," an arrest affidavit quotes one of the defendants, 67-year-old Dan Roberts, as saying during one recorded conversation.

According to arrest affidavits filed in the case, Roberts and 73-year-old Frederick Thomas agreed to buy a silencer, a bomb and parts to convert a semi-automatic rifle to a fully automatic machine gun from an undercover agent. Meanwhile, 65-year-old Ray Adams and 68-year-old Samuel Crump worked to obtain castor beans and produce ricin, an FBI agent states in the documents.

And during an April meeting at his home, Thomas told participants he had a "bucket list" of politicians, government officials, corporate leaders and media figures he said should be targeted to "make the country right again."

"I could shoot ATF and IRS all day long. All the judges and the DOJ and the attorneys and prosecutors," the affidavit quotes Thomas as saying.

The court papers include some snippets from covertly recorded chats with these guys. There are some lovely details not included in any news account known to me...

21. CRUMP also made the following comments regarding dispersing ricin:

a. "You take a poind of that (unintelligible), get upwind, up around Washington, DC, get about 20,000 feet (in an airplane), and turn that shit loose, it'd cover the whole (unintelligible) of Washington."

Since I now live not far from the whole (unintelligible) of Washington, this threat attracted my respectful attention. So did this reference to a toxic substance other than ricin:

14. CRUMP also told CHS1 about another substance even deadlier, stating "That other kind, 1 pound can kill 30 million people. CRUMP then stated, "We need somebody to back us with some damn money so we can make that other shit, which he then described as, "This is worse than anthrax." CRUMP added, "That shit's deadly! There ain't no damn, there ain't no cure it either. And it works, I think within 2 hours."

Very intriguing, and very frightening. Just what is this substance? In a later conversation, Crump referenced botulism, which can be weaponized in an aerosol form. (Also see here.)

I'd also like to know just what source of money these guys had in mind.

Oddly, the FBI investigator is careful not to list the militia linked to these individuals. The Georgia Constitutional Militia does not seem to have updated its website in fifteen years. Wikipedia says that there are two (competing?) groups in that state, the Georgia Militia and the Militia of Georgia. The latter seems likely, since it is located in the northern part of the state, which is where our four "patriots" were located. Their bulletin board doesn't look very active. This thread indicates that they think Glenn Beck is soft of communism and the Tea Party was co-opted by "moderate Republicans."

Should we dismiss the threat posed by the four arrested militia members simply because they are senior citizens? I wouldn't.