A group of self-styled militiamen over the weekend holed themselves up a federal wildlife refuge in a remote part of southeast OR, surrounded by 187 thousand acres of snowy high desert land and some 120 species of bird.
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But Curtiss said he had no idea that some of his fellow demonstrators planned to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge building after the march.
The two ranchers whose cause Bundy’s group has embraced – Dwight Hammond Jr., and his son, Steven – turned themselves over to federal authorities in California earlier on Monday.
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer). A member of the group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters, looks on at the front gate Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, near Burns, Ore.
From a campaign stop in Manchester, New Hampshire, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) called for balance from law enforcement in resolving the standoff.
Supporters wanted more land for cattle grazing, mining and timber harvesting and opponents wanted federal government to administer lands for the widest possible uses, including environmental and recreational.
The takeover marks the second time in less than two years that the Bundy clan has incited protest at gunpoint.
All 10 states where the government owns the most land, shown in the list below, fall in the West. Many treaties required states to surrender any claim to federal lands within their border as a prerequisite for admission to the Union, according to a 2014 Congressional Research Service report.
“The FBI is working with the Harney County Sheriff’s Office, Oregon State Police and other local and state law enforcement agencies to bring a peaceful resolution to the situation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge”, said the FBI’s Oregon office in a statement.
In 2013, the U.S. District Court of Nevada gave federal authorities power to remove the animals from governmentproperty if Bundy didn’t move them.
The armed protesters have said they are trying to help the Hammonds, who were convicted of arson and sentenced to five years in prison.
This time, the condemnation was swift and universal – with no Republican candidates offering any support for the protesters, instead lambasting their threats of violence.
“I have never been charged and prosecuted with anything in my life, and yet Senator Reid, without due process, has declared me, for life, as a Domestic Terrorist”, Ammon Bundy wrote in a November 2014 piece for Infowars. They served their original sentences – Dwight, three months and Steven, one year – but a judge ruled that the terms were too short under federal minimum sentencing laws.
Ammon Bundy said he prayed about the matter and “clearly understood that the Lord was not pleased with what was happening to the Hammonds”. They said they lit the fires to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires.
“I did exactly what the Lord asked me to do”, Bundy said in a YouTube video posted last week in which he appeals to like-minded people to join him in OR to protest against the treatment of the Hammonds.
If the situation turns violent, Bundy contends that it will be because of the federal government’s actions. But it is rejected by mainstream Mormons today, according to Matthew Bowman, a professor of American religion at Henderson State University in Arkansas.
The federal government controls about half of all land in the West, which would make the wholesale transfer of ownership extremely hard and expensive. These forms of alleged intimidation include barricading roads and revoking their grazing permits.
In response, Bundy and dozens of armed individuals took over a federal building to protest the decision.
“The group that’s holed up there in Burns seems to think they’re going to take that same idea to another level: You solve your issues over land usage or grazing fees or whatever by refusing to pay up and then using weapons to run cops off the land”.
“Certainly the folks that live close to these places have a very legitimate voice in this debate”.
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“I’m glad they took the refuge because it’s 30 miles away”, Landon said.
