They’re protesting two ranchers being sentenced to prison for setting fires on federal land.
I say they have the right to be in a federal building, but this is the wrong one. I’m thinking cozy cells in a federal prison, as guests of the federal government.
I doubt they have a lot of support. The ranchers may say that they had the right to set a 136-acre fire, but we in the West know all too well that little fires turn into huge conflagrations.
The arrest and imprisonment of the Hammonds is really not the core issue here. The dispute started over the Bundy family refusing to pay “grazing fees” for their cattle feeding on federally owned property. But really the objective here is to get the federal government to relinquish their ownership of all this land. The Bundy family believes the land belongs to “the people” and that the government is depriving ranchers of their livelihood by controlling the land and charging ranchers to have their livestock graze it.
This has been going on for quite a while and a relatively succinct account of the whole affair is provided by Wiki:
Can you imagine the reaction if say…BLM pulled off something like this? Thes Bundy guys are the same numbskulls who got into an armed standoff with Federal Agents and managed to get away scott free doing so…
I wish the government would clamp down hard on these guys. I would love to take over the park near me but c’mon that is a ridiculous- the park belongs to everyone and so does the wildlife refuge- although actually the wildlife refuge should belong to the wildlife. I wish the media would quit calling them militia and start calling them terrorists.
These people are obviously geared up to go much further than your typical college protestor. Or so it appears from what they are saying. They are not actually brandishing weapons or even threatening to use them. Just letting it be known they have them.
My point really was that sometimes these “take overs” bring people to the negotiating table. My own gut instinct is that the government has to be careful here what precedent they set. Not sure I have ever seen this in my lifetime.
I may not be recalling this correctly, but didn’t they essentially set a fire to cover up evidence of poaching? And that’s the reason they were found guilty?
They will be. They’re not brandishing the weapons now, but the minute that law enforcement shows up, they will be. In the last standoff, they not only brandished rifles, they aimed rifles at law enforcement. BLM didn’t point guns at cops when they occupied university buildings, because BLM didn’t have guns to point.
@romanigypsyeyes, the feds claimed the ranchers set the fire to cover up evidence of poaching. But they didn’t have the right to set the fires anyway, for any reason, if I understand correctly.
There’s nothing to negotiate. The terrorists’ position is they want to extort federal land from the federal government. The government’s positions should be, “No.”
During the school year I live in a neighboring state which also has a substantial “ranching” population. They all own guns and possess them legally as far as I know. It’s an integral part of the lifestyle where I live. They take them everywhere they go. I am going to bet that our family is one of about 10 in the whole town that does not own one.
It remains to be seen whether “they will be” using them.