Four years ago, a fiery ending in Waco, Texas, horrified a nation. Two years ago, a bomb rocked Oklahoma City. A year ago, Freemen maintained their standoff with federal officials in Montana.

But this April, the only comparable event is a reminder of the past -- the trial of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

The energy that drove extremist movements, such as citizen militias, is gone. And so are many of the militias.

So what happened to the right-wing movement that some pundits predicted would erupt into widespread domestic terrorism?

Oklahoma City, for one. The bomb that destroyed a federal building and killed 168 people two years ago forever mixed militias with extremism and violence, frightening away current and potential membership.

Also, the 81-day standoff between so-called Freemen and federal officials ended peacefully and exposed anti-government advocates more as con men than persecuted activists.

And the country changed. Republicans took control of Congress, and the nation moved in a conservative direction -- smaller government, less regulation -- placating many who sympathized with militias.

"Right now much of the militia's ideology is becoming mainstream," said Jack Levin, a sociologist and criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston who studies militia and hate groups.

"It's becoming ingrained in the thinking of ordinary citizens who don't trust the federal government."

Why join?

Alan Stroud attended his first militia meeting in Boise in summer 1994. By early 1995, he attended twice a month.

The GOP revolution was at its height. And long-standing issues of gun rights, private property rights and federal regulation rose again in the West.

Lawmakers called for massive changes and decried what some called the federal government's war on the West.

Sen. Larry Craig proposed to disarm federal rangers. Rep. Helen Chenoweth held "hearings" in Boise in which Idaho ranchers "confirmed" that federal agents flew black helicopters over their land.

Stroud was like many others who showed interest in the Blackfoot-based U.S. Militia Association. He wasn't a gun-toting, ex-military survivalist. The Boise man was simply disillusioned and disenfranchised.

Stroud lost his job and his marriage in a single year and called himself overeducated and underemployed. And he didn't trust the federal government.

The U.S. Militia Association shared many of his philosophies. The federal government was too big and too intrusive. And the federal bureaucracy engaged in illegal acts that escaped the mainstream media and a middle class satisfied with its creature comforts.

"At least the left and right realize that something is wrong," Stroud, 42, said. "It's the middle. That's the comfortable group, and they feel that things are OK."

Clinton's election

Citizen militias began to flourish when voters elected Democrat Bill Clinton as president, according to militia watchers.

Gun-control legislation came to the forefront, Levin said. And fears intensified in the West that federal land-use and environmental regulations would strip residents of their private property rights.

The disastrous endings between federal agents and fringe groups in Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, also fueled paranoia.

In Ruby Ridge, a U.S. marshal and the wife and son of extremist Randy Weaver were killed before Weaver surrendered. In Waco, the standoff with Branch Dividians ended with the deaths of more than 80 people on April 19, 1993.

Militias and their sympathizers claimed both tragedies proved that the government was moving against dissenters.

The Brady gun-control law, which required a background check and waiting period before buying a handgun, cemented those fears.

"That kind of gun-control legislation confirmed their worst suspicions -- that the federal government was the enemy," Levin said.

Groups that formed included advocates for legitimate issues -- gun rights, private property rights, local political control. And it included groups that believed in the bizarre -- for example, a pending United Nations invasion or an individual's right to declare himself "sovereign" and ignore society's laws.

And some groups took the militia idea seriously. They collected arms and organized military-style exercises.

Many of the new militias were unlike hate groups that had formed in the 1980s -- such as north Idaho's Aryan Nations or the Order, a white supremacist group that conducted bombings, bank robberies and killings in 1984.

Although the militias' language was inflammatory at times, they refrained from violence. And their central themes revolved around local control and restoring a Christian center to America rather than demonizing specific racial or ethnic groups.

And that attracted people such as Stroud.

"I have met no one who's anti-government," Stroud said. "We're anti-big government, and there's a big distinction."

Militia Association

The U.S. Militia Association and its founder, Samuel Sherwood, became Idaho staples in 1994-95, at least for a media fascinated with militia groups.

Sherwood claimed his citizen militia was active in 1994's Republican landslide, and he boasted a growing membership.

Sherwood predicted war with the federal government. And he lit a fire storm a month before Oklahoma City when he told followers that they may have to shoot off the faces of Idaho lawmakers who sided with Washington, D.C., during the upcoming civil conflict.

In retrospect, the media made more of militias than the groups were due, according to Laird Wilcox. Wilcox researches extremist groups and co-authored "Nazis, Communists, Klansmen, and Others on the Fringe."

Pockets of violent right-wing groups attracted some new members. But at best, only about 10,000 people actively participated in citizen militias, Wilcox said.

And many of those attended meetings because they were frustrated and down on their luck.

"It's hard to have a movement with under 10,000 people," Wilcox said.

Then Oklahoma City hit April 19, 1995. Officials speculated that the alleged plotters had militia ties or sympathized with the militia ideology.

And the media circled the militias like buzzards over wounded prey.

After a deluge of coverage, militia members at best were fat, drunk guys who ran around in the woods with guns. At worst, they were patriot plotters who used violence to get their way.

More moderate militia members quit. And those sympathetic to the movement slunk into obscurity.

"A lot of them just disappeared right after the bombing," Wilcox said. "So many people were sickened by being associated with that. They just didn't want that."

Montana standoff

The Montana standoff a year later also restored the federal government's credibility in the eyes of some skeptics.

The FBI was patient and tactful in Montana. There would be no bloody battles as with the Branch Davidians in Waco or the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge.

Agents waited. And they negotiated, even enlisting the help of prominent militia supporters to negotiate a peaceful settlement.

While the FBI repaired its image, the Freemen came across as con men who harassed public officials and passed bad checks to fund their schemes.

Catherine McNicol Stock, author of "Rural Radicals" who researches fringe uprisings, said government has to take such groups seriously. Otherwise, law enforcement agents create martyrs rather than expose extremists for what they are.

"They may be extremists, and some may be crooks," Stock said. "But they're serious about what they believe. And many Americans believe in some small parts of those beliefs."

Big government era

President Bill Clinton sealed the fate of most citizen militias when he declared that the era of big government was over. National politics settled into a comfortable, conservative neighborhood that appeased many people who were frustrated or angry in 1994.

Advocating local control vs. federal oversight, once a staple of militia meetings, is now a common political theme. And that has pulled people heading toward the political margins back toward the middle.

"They don't have to meet with AK-47s in secret cells to make their point," Levin said. "They can talk about it in the open."

People such as Stroud, who once attended two militia meetings a week, have since switched to new causes. Things may not be perfect. The federal government is still too intrusive. But people aren't angry enough to be activists anymore.

"I'm taking a little break right now," Stroud said. "I get involved in one thing and run with that for awhile and get involved in another thing and run with that."

Leader moves to Utah

The U.S. Militia Association folded after much controversy and little success. Founder Samuel Sherwood abandoned Blackfoot and moved to Utah.

Citizen militias are active in about a dozen states. But most don't have many members. The 51st Militia in Missouri, for example, maintains a World Wide Web site and holds regular meetings.

However, only about two dozen people attend, said Rebecca Shelton, a reporter with The Independence Examiner who covers the group. And the group's military exercises fit the fat, older white guys stereotype.

Most who professed interest in militias lost interest. Or, they realized that now wasn't the right time to talk revolution.

"They find the best you can do is keep your mouth shut," Wilcox said.

What's left to carry the anti-government banner are hard-core members-- the patriot plotters whose hatred of the federal government is as ingrained as their love of country.

And that has most militia watchers worried.

Those are the ones who lean more toward violence, such as the Viper Militia in Arizona. Twelve members there were arrested for collecting a cache of weapons and stockpiling fertilizer -- the kind used to build the bomb that rocked Oklahoma City.

Or the small splinter groups that use hate and bigotry to justify their violence. A dozen people don't seem like a threat. But a small number can do tremendous damage with today's technology. Oklahoma City proved that.

The government infiltrated many groups and placed others under surveillance. But it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between political dissent and pure hate.

"It's very hard to tell the difference between someone who seriously objects to gun control but is pro-Democracy and somebody who is an anti-Semitic Nazi," said Philip Jenkins, a historian at Penn State University who studies hate groups.

The government also can't eliminate violence. The nation's history is filled with domestic terrorism, such as in the 1960s and '70s when the Weather Underground used violence to protest the Vietnam War.

Or, the Ku Klux Klan that rose earlier this century in response to civil rights and economic hardship. Or, Shays's Rebellion in post-Revolutionary War days in which farmers formed a militia to protest Massachusetts' elite power structure.

In one form or another, domestic terrorism will renew itself again when a group on the right or left perceives that the government is threatening a cherished right.

And each time a bomb detonates or a group stashes guns "people say this is the worst it's ever been," Jenkins said. "And they're wrong every time."

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