In pictures and videos taken by a small militia group called the Central Virginia Irregulars (CVI), four people dressed in body armor, tactical gear, and gas masks practice their shooting. With their faces either covered by masks or edited into blurs, the footage shows the men firing at targets in an open field.
“You never know how soon another lovely summer will happen where there are crazies trying to burn down and destroy your local city or town,” the caption on the November 9, 2025, post to Instagram reads.
Part of a much broader scene of American militias, CVI is one of many small “irregular” groups promoting, networking, and recruiting openly on major social media platforms like Instagram.
Sometimes claiming to be non-ideological, these groups are steeped in the often coded language of the far right. The “lovely summer”—sometimes called the “summer of love”—mentioned in the CVI post refers to the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd, a period that looms large in the imagination of the American militia movement as a time of lawlessness and destruction that could arrive on their doorstep at any moment.
A separate post from 2023, pinned so it appears first on the CVI account page, gives a description of the group: “We serve to help each other in the case of natural disaster, to resist oppressive government, and organized crime.”
This framing of militia activity is common among these types of local groups, who often include descriptors like “irregulars,” “reconnaissance,” “contingency,” “preparedness,” or “emergency response” in their names. These serve as signifiers of a shared approach to paramilitary organizing as well as an attempt to whitewash their activities as community-oriented projects, rather than the “combat operations” that make up the bulk of their public training.
Combat Operations
An image posted to Instagram on October 21, 2025, depicting the Central Ohio Minutemen. (Source: Instagram).
Militia groups document their training and distribute the content, which is shared via Instagram to draw interest from like-minded people and groups. The images are edited and shared, often alongside calls for new recruits to reach out via the platform.
The actual training militia groups engage in is varied, and can include basic outdoor and bushcraft skill development, but primarily revolves around combat scenarios, field training exercises, and a pervasive obsession with firearms.
Groups use public and private lands to practice military and insurgency tactics. These exercises often include simulated scenarios such as practicing setting up roadblocks at roadway entry points or using facilities that offer tactical training to simulate close quarter combat. The Central Ohio Minutemen (COMM) posted pictures of some of this training in a post on April 14, 2025.
“Entry control point training focused on a variety of unknown contacts scenarios, that included friendly entry, hostile contact, EPW [likely meaning Enemy Prisoner of War], vehicle search, and detainment techniques,” the caption read next to an image of a prone militiaman aiming his weapon at a vehicle.
Two posts made by the Central Ohio Minutemen in Spring 2025 showing different aspects of their combat and security training. (Source: Instagram).
A comment on the same post by the River Valley Minutemen (RVMM), another small militia cell, read, “Very creative.”
RVMM draws members from regions of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. The comment sections of these training posts often include different militia groups offering words of support and encouragement.
In a separate video on the same COMM account, posted on Instagram on March 14, 2025, the group was shown engaged in a simulation taking place at an unnamed indoor facility. Many businesses that offer military training to civilian groups dot the country, staging realistic combat scenarios for those willing to pay. The edited COMM footage shows the group practicing entering and clearing rooms of hostiles. In another clip, they advanced up a flight of stairs as gunmen fired simulated rounds down at them. A second later, the footage shows them searching and detaining another individual.
Field Training and Networking
Field training exercises, referred to as “FTX”—one of numerous abbreviations taken from military parlance that pervade the groups—are outdoor training sessions where combat exercises and survival skills are applied in the wilderness. These training sessions are important not only for skill development, but networking opportunities as irregular militias or their members will sometimes travel to meet and connect with other groups.
In June 2024, the 1st PMR Mountaineers, 3 Rivers Preparedness Group, and 1st New England Minutemen (NEMM) conducted a joint field training. The groups celebrated their shared event by posing for pictures holding flags associated with their militias.
A picture posted by the 1st PMR Mountaineers that is alleged to include the 3 Rivers Preparedness Group and members of 1st New England Minutemen. (Source: Instagram).
For at least one of those groups, past activity and travel have resulted in serious legal consequences.
Several NEMM members were arrested in 2020 after traveling to a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Troy, New York. Five men were convicted on a variety of different charges including disorderly conduct and criminal possession of a weapon, though one, a former U.S. Army drone operator, pleaded guilty to gun charges related to carrying a 9 mm pistol that had no serial number.
During an appearance on a pro-Second Amendment podcast in 2023, a NEMM representative said that the men were part of a more militant subsection of the militia and associated themselves with the “Boogaloo” movement, a far-right militia subculture focused on preparing for civil war. The movement traces its origins to online extremist image boards, particularly 4chan’s /K/ board, which is focused on firearms.
On the NH 2A Podcast, NEMM’s self-described commanding officer, an alleged military veteran using the alias “Handsome,” and a platoon commander using the name “Tango” claimed the Boogaloo element made up a “large base of the [NEMM] membership” at the time.
Handsome said on the podcast that the “rabidly anti-government people” had been removed from the group.
“That’s not what we’re about,” he added, but maintained that the men who had been arrested were entrapped by law enforcement.
Militia groups have also made actual contributions to disaster relief. In May 2025, the River Valley Minutemen and Iron Hills Contingency Group released a picture and said they participated in “cleanup and recovery” of areas impacted by a tornado in Southern Kentucky. River Valley Minutemen also released video of its members assisting with water and food deliveries during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in 2024.
Offering aid is a common tactic that has been utilized by extremist groups for years, including large militia organizations like the Oath Keepers and white supremacist groups like Patriot Front. These groups have provided aid or assistance to desperate people who have been let down or overlooked by state disaster responses to paint the groups and their activists as local heroes stepping in for an inept or indifferent government.
Extremist Paramilitaries
The irregular model seen developing on Instagram is a departure from the larger statewide militias that have populated the country for decades. While a large group or unified hierarchical network could emerge in the future, small, decentralized cells of disconnected but aligned individuals are more resistant to investigation and infiltration by law enforcement and activists.
Legal cases against militia members involved in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, severely hampered militia organizing. These court cases and the fear of similar prosecutions have contributed to the growth of these smaller irregular groups, rather than larger organizations like the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers.
The Oath Keepers suffered under the weight of convictions against its leadership and members and thus far have been unable to recover. Oath Keeper founder and leader Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 18 years in prison after his role in the storming of the Capitol Building. Kelly Meggs, a Florida chapter leader with the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 12 years for his role. Multiple other members were convicted on similar charges, though received lesser sentences. Rhodes and the others were later pardoned or had their sentences commuted in January 2025 by President Donald Trump. Rhodes has made attempts to reboot the Oath Keepers since his release, with little success or interest from former members.
Despite the pardons, the Capitol convictions remain a major source of concern for irregular groups.
Many ordinary firearm enthusiasts engage in target shooting, hunting, and outdoor practice to sharpen their skills. What makes militias a serious concern is the intense focus on the development of combat skills, concealment of their identities, and signaling to extreme ideologies and subcultures. Militia groups have a long-documented history of trading in far-right conspiracy theories and seek to capitalize on anti-government sentiment.
Many of the irregular militias on Instagram do not make major ideological statements overtly on their social media pages. Recruitment is also concealed and conducted through open training days, solicited through Instagram posts, or by contacting paramilitary accounts directly through Instagram’s messaging features. The discussion that does take place in the open, however, gives glimmers of how groups interact with other extremist rhetoric and ideology.
On September 11, 2025, the anniversary of the worst terror attack in U.S. history, and the day after far-right leader Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a public appearance in Utah, the Mountain State Contingency Group posted an image of an armed man running with a rifle in the woods. Text above and below him edited onto the image reads “You are hated” and “Train Accordingly.”
On September 10, an account alleging to be part of the Pine Tree Rangers, a Georgia-based militia, posted an illustration of a knife with a similar “you are hated” message.
“You can bet that they won’t stop with public figures,” the caption on the image said, referencing Kirk’s assassination. “When they decide to commit acts such as this to people who solely used words as their tools to try and change minds, don’t think they won’t escalate.
“Find your tribe, get out and train, and hold the line.”
The imagery and language of Christian Nationalism is also on clear display by many of the militias, though others claim to be agnostic. Christian nationalism is a political ideology and movement that aims to dogmatically reshape the United States as a Christian theocracy in which government, law, and public life reflect a narrow, exclusionary interpretation of Christianity.
The main Instagram account for the Pine Tree Rangers has posted images of its members posing with a flag of the Jerusalem Cross, a Catholic symbol often used by the far right, with the caption “Christ is King. Go find your brothers and train. Build a better community and a better self.”
Members of the Pine Tree Rangers posing together with a flag showing the Jerusalem Cross posted on October 2025. (Source:Instagram).
Other images show the symbol on patches and even affixed onto the magazines that hold the ammunition for their rifles.
A post by COMM from October 2025 shows a group of six armed men viewed through the green tint of night vision standing under the words “Join or die.” The caption quotes the Bible’s book of Ephesians asking followers to “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
Meta’s Responsibility
Far from obscured or hidden on the platform, militias on Instagram operate openly, with other groups and members being recommended by the platform when a user starts following others. Like other influencers on the platform, they cross-promote one another, boost each other’s content, and fill the comments sections with messages of support.
Most militia activity takes place offline, but Instagram allows for the groups to broadcast their activities on a major platform, making initial contact or redirection to another site for recruitment a simple process.
The decision to allow these accounts to continue appears to be in violation of Instagram’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, though the extent to which the policy applies across the network is subjective. According to the policy, “Violence Inducing Entities” are subject to bans and removal. These groups are defined as a “non-state actor” that “uses weapons as a part of their training, communication, or presence; and are structured or operate as unofficial military or security forces.”
To be in violation of the policy, an account must also be engaged in preparation for violence or civil war, advocate for violence against government officials or violent disruptions of civic events, promote bringing weapons to a location when the stated intent is to intimidate people amid a protest, or other illegal activity including burglary and vandalism.
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, cannot claim that it is unaware of the severity of the risk posed by militia organizing on its platforms. A report released in the wake of January 6 showed how Meta, as well as Twitter and YouTube, ignored employee warnings about violent content and conversations taking place on the platform. In May 2024, an investigation by Wired found approximately 200 Facebook groups and profiles being used by anti-government and far-right extremists to coordinate local militia activity.
