RYAN DUFFY: So not too long ago, we went and met with J.T.
Ready to do a piece about border militias in Arizona.
During our filming, it became apparent to us that J.T. was a
complex and complicated guy, but we had no idea that things
were as dark as they were.
We were super saddened by the events
this morning in Arizona.
He was a very charismatic guy, right?
The whole piece that you're about to see is a PR tour,
essentially.
He's a spinster.
He was very well aware of the perceptions of him and did his
best to counteract that and to show a different side of what
he was doing.
At the same time, we knew about him.
We had done our research, we had done our pre-production.
And we knew that there were photos of
him at neo-Nazi rallies.
We knew that he had made statements to the press in the
past that were horrible and awful.
And we asked him about those, and he very kind of slickly
and slyly denied and danced around them, so they didn't
become a centerpiece of the piece.
And I guess, in retrospect, I guess I wish we did hammer on
that a little bit more.
Overall, someone that we spent time with and shared a meal
with has done something so god-awful and tragic.
So it caused us to think we should revisit our piece, the
Vice Guide to Border Militias, and share it with you guys.
So this is the Vice Guide to Border Militias.
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RYAN DUFFY: So the private militia has kind of come
roaring back to life in America in
the last couple years.
And they're rattling around a bunch of different causes.
Now for J.T and the Ready Rangers, it's this stretch of
land here in Stanfield, Arizona.
Basically, it's no man's land, 3,000 acres of American soil
that US citizens are discouraged from entering and
illegal immigrants regularly travel through while sneaking
across the border.
So J.T. Ready and the Ready Rangers have stepped in.
J.T. READY: We do kind of have a Wild West spirit out here.
We have very liberal gun laws.
You can own machine guns.
You can legally own grenades, tanks even.
We got some terrorist coming at us with machine guns and
ski masks in the middle of the desert, we're allowed to shoot
him right in the face.
And we want him to know there's Americans
standing the line.
RYAN DUFFY: The Ready Rangers are a bunch of volunteers out
here patrolling 160 miles of desert.
And to be clear, absolutely no one has asked them to.
J.T. READY: OK, here you go.
See this ski mask?
You don't wear those out here in this heat, unless
you're a bad guy.
RYAN DUFFY: J.T. is all about being the good guy.
And part of that is making the bad guys look
really, really bad.
J.T. READY: Life is very low on the totem pole when it
comes to the cartel.
There's a thing called rape trees, cutting off body parts.
They mail them back to Mom and Pop down south.
Bloody undergarments, Los Zetas, pockets full of feces.
When the coroner comes out here and tries to remove that
duct tape, it takes her face with them.
And they'll leave heads and things like that on the
border, just all packed in there like Amistad.
RYAN DUFFY: J.T. wanted us to know that even though he wants
to shoot drug smugglers directly in the face, he's
totally into helping out the regular, old, illegal
immigrants he finds.
J.T. READY: We try to give the regular UDAs as much respect
as possible, that includes out of our own pocket, water,
limes, they like limes.
They like garlic and stuff like that.
We try to think of their cultural stuff.
RYAN DUFFY: Could you imagine if you were starving in a
desert for a week, it was 110 degrees in the shade, and a
dude found you and was like, oh, don't worry, I'm
going to help you.
Here's a lime and a clove of garlic because I understand
your culture.
J.T. Is so focused on getting his side of the story out
there that he turned our border patrol into some sort
of international press junket, with a bunch of crews filming
the Ready Rangers getting the job done.
The craziest part about all of this is what J.T. Is doing is
totally legal.
Not only has the US government not figured out how to
regulate the border, they've also let guys like J.T. wander
around the desert with some buddies and a
military-grade arsenal.
And that makes him feel like an American hero.
J.T. READY: I'm just out there bearing assault rifles and
saving lives and looking for narco-terrorists.
That which doesn't kill me makes me smarter.
And that which does kill me will make me a martyr.
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