Moorish Americans under scrutiny after taking over shooting range

Moorish Americans are currently the subject of unprecedented negative attention in Southern Maryland, US, after they engaged in loud shootings, endangering cows, and a stray bullet that punctured a neighbor’s property, reports The Washington Post.

Before authorities judged it necessary to stop the gun activities at the site, the events occurred in a previously “gun-friendly” location where gun enthusiasts assembled.

Those enthusiasts started calling themselves  “Moorish Americans — an offshoot of the extremist sovereign citizen movement whose members believe they are immune from dealings with US legal and financial systems — essentially took over the range, declaring it protected under the consular jurisdiction of Morocco,” said The Washington Post.

Following repeated complaints from neighbors, authorities began to take action, fining the shooters and arresting them, until finally the property was raided by the sheriff’s deputy, confiscating roughly a dozen firearms.

One of the neighbors told The Washington Post that this intervention was long overdue.

He described how he was worried about his herd of cows which is why he moved them to a pasture where they wouldn’t be shot at.

While being handcuffed by law enforcement, Byron Bell, the landlord of the property where the gun enthusiasts assembled, had acknowledged that things had gone too far.

Judge Karen Abrams said that the shootings “encourage citizens to ignore the very regulations that are implemented to protect them and others.”

Officials from Charles County were faced with many perplexing documents to fill in from the Moorish group following the arrests.

The officials stated that the terms of an 1836 treaty between the United States and Morocco ‘applied’ to the dispute over Bell’s territory, where no special shooting license was provided.

A “writ of error” signed by Lamont Maurice El, who claimed to be the general consul of the “Morocco Consular Court in the Maryland state republic,” was one of the papers.

According to The Washington Post, the Moorish Americans think they are the descendants of an imaginary empire that they claim once extended from the modern-day monarchy of Morocco to North America, with Mexico and Atlantis thrown in for good measure. 

They assert their rights to seize houses that they claim are still a part of the “Moroccan Empire,” including well-appointed mansions owned by other people, while also claiming the same safeguards from U.S. judicial processes provided to foreign citizens.

Court records show that Bell, the property owner, renounced his Moorish citizenship in September. He admitted to The Post that, although still having trouble grasping much of the group’s doctrine, he found it to be “very educational.”

One of the things he had discovered, he stated, was that he should regard himself as immune from the county’s legal actions, in part because authorities from the government did not use the Moorish version of his name, Byron David Bell-Bey, in court documents.

The Moorish group promised shooters at the assembly, after charging them $25 a person,  that “security will be in full force for everyone’s safety and protection” under Moroccan consular jurisdiction.

Bell is now facing serious legal actions and is held with no bail possibility. He promised that there will be no more shootings at his property.