http://www.pittsburghlive.com/…

Morgan Jones once built a tank out of scrap metal and drove it to church.

During annual potluck parties at his backwoods Clarion County home, he often wowed guests with his homemade flamethrower.

And sometimes, just for fun, he’d entertain friends by shooting an electrical charge through his body to light a bulb.

His wife, Donna, says he’s a little eccentric.

“I never thought it was illegal to be eccentric,” she said. “He’s a good man. He’s not a terrorist or a domestic threat.”

Agents from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force thought otherwise when they arrested Jones last month as he left Sunday Mass in the sleepy hamlet of Lucinda.

Jones, 64, was charged with selling a Romanian AK-47 assault rifle to an undercover agent posing as an Ohio resident.

Later, when agents headed down a bumpy, macadam road to Jones’ modular home, they found an array of homemade weapons, a cannon, drums of explosive chemicals and a depleted uranium shell. The military often uses uranium shells because they penetrate tank armor.

Officials allege Jones is a major player in a militia movement whose shadowy members have a “propensity toward violence” against the government, elected officials, judges and law enforcement.

“Propensity toward violence?! That’s our job!!” “Militia? That’s something the government is supposed to handle subject citizen! Ignore the ‘bad eggs’ tazing people, the check points, the NAU, the creeping police state. We will protect you.”

In one taped conversation, Jones extolled the virtues of an AK-47 rifle he was selling to the undercover officer.

“It’s a longer barrel and a longer range job,” Jones said. “It’s more like a sniper gun. You can launch grenades with it.”

In another conversation, he chatted about the availability of ammonium nitrate that can be used in a bomb similar to the one used in the Oklahoma City attack.

“You can’t find ammonium nitrate,” Jones said. “I’ll tell you a top secret. Cold packs contain ammonium nitrate. I have cases and cases of cold packs all over Clarion County.”

On another tape, Landis talks about wanting to “plink” Gov. Ed Rendell.

Agents found what they described as a suicide belt at Landis’ home containing homemade “grenades” made from over-the-counter medicine containers packed with small ball bearings and explosives.

Kahle is heard on the tapes describing how to make an improvised explosive device using an empty bean can, a powerful firecracker, pellets, wax and a fuse. He boasted that if a SWAT team was trying to arrest him, “I would be tough to take.”

If true… so the guy is a little paranoid. So is a lot of people who start looking into the government’s activities. How much of this is exaggeration and how much is reality? Likely the government won’t ever truthfully say.

Donna Jones said her husband attended St. Vincent College near Latrobe for a year before transferring to Clarion University of Pennsylvania, where he earned degrees in physics and chemistry. He worked briefly as a high school teacher, and before his arrest repaired mufflers for a living in his backyard and sold used cars. His wife said he didn’t like teaching but enjoys working with his hands.

::ahem:: no comment.

Pitcavage said local residents tend to downplay the existence of militias in their backyards.

Many residents in Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion counties say they’ve never heard of the militias.

“I’ve never had a case in my term as DA with anyone purporting to be or claiming to be members of these militias,” said Clarion County District Attorney Mark Aaron. “If there’s renewed activity, I haven’t seen it.”

Randy Bartley, editor of the Jeffersonian Democrat in Jefferson County, said that in the 1990s when the Ku Klux Klan was undergoing a revival, he knew every member. Yet he doesn’t know one member of the Brookville Tigers Militia.

Law enforcement officials believe the organization has about 200 members.

“This doesn’t smell right,” Bartley said. “There hasn’t been a peep; not even a whiff of this stuff.”

He’s a militia member obviously. He’ll be next if he’s not quiet.

Defendant Marvin Hall’s sister, Joyce Mineweaser, said her brother never discussed being a member of a militia.

She describes her brother as a lonely man who drinks too much and is bipolar.

She doubts he is guilty.

“On Sept. 11, 2001, he sat on the couch and cried. He said, ‘How could anybody kill that many people?’ Does that sound like a terrorist?” she said.

How? By pushing a person to the brink by interfering in their lives and those of their loved ones. Kindof like how Mr. Hall likely was starting to feel if the claims about his militia participation is true.

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