Recruiting membership in an unauthorized militia or the Ku Klux Klan would be a crime if legislation approved Thursday by the House of Representatives becomes law.

"This is making unauthorized militias illegal,” said Rep. Mike Shelton, the amendment’s author.

Both groups were added in an amendment to Senate Bill 2018, which would increase the penalty for aiding or soliciting gang membership from one year in prison to five years in prison. It also would create a new crime for gang-related offenses as a condition of membership, with the penalty being five years in prison.

"There has been a great deal of attention given to increasing the penalties for those involved in gang activity, and while I agree that gangs are terrorizing many communities, they are not the only such threat in our state,” said Shelton, D-Oklahoma City.

"In Oklahoma, we have seen the damage done by militia fanatics,” said Shelton, referring to the truck bombing 15 years ago of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. "The Ku Klux Klan has a long history of violence and domestic terrorism,” he said.

"Involvement in those types of organizations should be treated no differently than participation in an urban gang.”

SB 2018 passed 98-1. It now goes to the Senate.

Shelton’s amendment was filed about a week after news reports indicated some in Oklahoma tea party groups supported a volunteer militia to help defend the state’s sovereignty against federal government infringement. Several tea party leaders later said they had been talking about reinstituting a state guard, which would help with emergencies and would be under the direction of the governor and Legislature.

Shelton’s amendment defines an unauthorized militia as a group not recognized nor authorized by the commander-in-chief of the state’s militia.

He said on the House floor that would be the governor.

Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, asked Shelton if he characterized the Black Panthers as an unauthorized militia.

"Are they going around terrorizing communities, doing drive-by shootings, using ammonium nitrate to blow up buildings?” Shelton asked. "When they start doing that, they would be considered (that).”