Locked and Loaded

Duluth, Georgia

Wild Bill's, a cavernous nightclub in the Atlanta suburbs, is usually packed with country-and-western fans on a Saturday night. But the buzzing throng of hundreds on June 24 didn't come to see Keith Urban or LeAnn Rimes. Georgia's GOP Capitol Political Action Committee was hosting "Primary Issues," a concert, barbecue and Republican fundraiser headlined by a different kind of star: celebrity vigilante Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC).

A 43-year-old former gunfight-show actor with an Ichabod Crane physique and a self-image the size of Texas, Simcox is chiefly responsible for touching off the Minuteman movement, a grassroots prairie fire fueled by thinly veiled racism and nativist paranoia. More than anyone, Simcox has promoted the concept that vigilantism is patriotic. His pitch is that armed "citizen border patrols" must do "the job the government refuses to do"--defend America from brown-skinned "invaders."

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