In February, I blogged here at the Huffington Post and commented on National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre's recent call for the implementation of a militia movement untethered to government authority. In his speech before the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference, LaPierre claimed that American police forces can no longer protect us and fantasized about "[armed] citizens coming together, in the face of lawlessness, to protect their neighborhoods."

Recent events in Alaska demonstrate that the NRA's connection to violent anti-government militias is more than just conceptual. In fact, two longstanding NRA board members are closely tied to a group of extremists who were just put in jail after plotting insurrectionary killings.