3 Percenters

The Three Percenters (also styled "3%ers", "III%ers"; also "3 Percenters Club", "3 Percenters Movement") are a part of the United States paramilitary patriot movement, which pledges armed resistance to fight measures to restrict firearm ownership They have described themselves as a group whose primary purpose is to protect constitutional rights. They have been characterized as being ideologically similar to the Oath Keepers.

The group's name is based on the supposed size of the active faction in armed resistance, relative to total population, in reference to the historical Patriots in armed resistance against the British in the American Revolution.

Foundation and aims

The movement was started in 2008, developing during the early years of the Obama administration, in reaction to a perceived trend towards an increasingly overreaching federal government, particularly a perceived trend towards stricter gun control. The movement was co-founded by Mike Vanderboegh from Alabama, a member of the Oath Keepers, a group with whom they remain loosely allied, and who publicized the movement on his blog "Sipsey Street Irregulars" beginning November 2008. Vanderboegh claims to have formerly been a member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Socialist Workers Party, but abandoned left-wing politics in 1977 after being introduced to right-wing libertarianism. The "Three Percenters Club" website was established in 2011 by one Michael Graham.