David Straight
David Straight
David Straight is a prominent figure in the sovereign citizen movement who has gained significant influence through his seminars and online presence. He promotes the idea of becoming an "American State National," suggesting that individuals can declare themselves independent of U.S. laws and avoid legal obligations such as taxes and state driving licenses.
His adventure did not begin with those ideas but with a conflict with CPS in Oregon and an incident when he was about 26 where his six children were snatched from his home while he was at work.
He got his children back with bold moves from the advise of a former prosecutor but soon he would be helping many other people with similar problems. His legal theories and followers would grow and progress from there. He was not the only one who started down that road after what is often government abuse.
Straight has been arrested multiple times for driving without a license and not "properly" displaying license plates, despite his teachings that followers should not be detained if they adhere to his beliefs.
He has also been involved in selling his license plates for a claimed original "Republic of Texas" and promoting land plots in the same fictional entity.
Straight's teachings have led to disagreements within the sovereign citizen community and have been criticized for misleading and potentially harmful advice, such as claiming that parents can use his methods to reclaim custody of their children from child protective services.
David Gilbert wrote an article. April 12, 2023. Stating that "David Straight was arrested Monday in Texas for driving without a license and not properly displaying license plates, despite his position as one of America’s most influential promoters of the baseless sovereign citizen ideology, which claims that people can declare themselves independent and not subject to a country’s laws."
His followers believe, “Isn’t he on a do not detain list?” one member of Straight’s hugely popular Telegram channel asked on Tuesday. “How are they able to arrest him? I’m just curious how he gets arrested.” and another asks, “How could they arrest him? According to him he’s untouchable! A King! So much for the ‘Do not arrest’ and ‘Do not detain’ they stamp on their own passports.”
But he was arrested just the same. But dedicated followers proclaim that, “Johnson County Texas don’t know it yet, they just bought [Straight] two new trucks and a nice building to park them in.”
“American State Nationals” (ASNs) was a "movement,” according to Christine Sarteschi. These State nationals or non-citizens refuse to identify themselves sometimes using the term “sovereigns” etc. The practices used in these broad based movements increasingly shift about with popular and often charismatic leaders becoming baroque, overly complicated and factional orthodoxy with particular vocabulary or alternative English syntax or euphemistically called “Quantum Grammar”.
American States Assembly, led by Anna von Reitz, followed similar rhetoric. The SPLC sees this all as "conspiratorial ideology" in which followers believe they are no longer active citizens or non-citizens of the United States.
Straight reportedly made over $179,400 from sales of the plates and 9-foot parcels of land in Texas. Bobby Lawrence and Straight crowded funded to make a movie. Chase Allen a member of ASN Study Guide & University, died after he refused to comply with a traffic stop in Farmington, Utah.
David over his career made lots of sensational claims which I have never been able to substantiate. But unfortunately David Straight died on April 2, 2025, after a battle with stage 4 cancer.
Movements momentum mayhem and money
But these different movements have gone world wide and can include multimillion dollar fraud schemes where people fall prey to crooks.
As I have watched so many real, often sincere, people who have their lives put in shambles or destroyed all together I sought to know where is the truth and what laws must we follow and why?
How does the system work where are the borders were the the truth blends into a lie?