4 Years Ago, Hundreds Of Protesters Proved That Armed Americans Can Take On The US Gov’t—And Win

By Rachel Blevins

 While there are a number of arguments that are used by gun control  advocates, one of the most common is that individuals do not need  high-powered firearms because they will not stand a chance in a war  against the federal government. 

However, four years ago, a group of  armed men and women did come together to form a militia, as referenced  in the Second Amendment, and they successfully stood up to the  government agencies that were infringing upon their rights. On April 5, 2014, an ongoing land dispute between  cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and the United States Bureau of Land  Management hit its peak when the agency and federal law enforcement  began seizing cattle owned by Bundy that they claimed were trespassing  on “federally-owned” land. 

The dispute first began in 1993 when Bundy refused to pay for a  cattle grazing permit to use the land near his ranch in Clark County,  Nevada, after the BLM claimed  that he must reduce the side of his herd to 150 and that the size of  land where his cattle were allowed to graze would be severely  restricted. Bundy argued that the federal government does not have the  authority to own large amounts of land, which launched a legal battle  that continued for the next two decades. 

As the Tenth Amendment Center reported, the federal government claims to own 81 percent of the land in the state of Nevada and “On the land they manage, the feds are threatening to evict tenants who refuse to pay outrageous fees.” As a result, Bundy was “the  last of a dying breed, the only holdout who hasn’t been driven off land  in Clark County in recent years, land his family has utilized and  improved for nearly a century.” 

In addition to seizing cattle, the government also began conducting  heavy surveillance around the Bundy Ranch. 

On April 8, Cliven Bundy and  his wife, Carol, told the Washington Free Beacon that more than 200 agents from the BLM and FBI were stationed around the property, armed with “automatic weapons, sniper rifles, top communication, top surveillance equipment, lots of vehicles,” as helicopters circled overhead and agents blocked the nearby roads. “The battle’s been going on for 20 years,” Cliven Bundy said.

 “What’s  happened the last two weeks, the United States government, the bureaus  are getting this army together and they’re going to get their job done  and they’re going to prove two things. They’re going to prove they can  do it, and they’re gonna prove that they have unlimited power and that  they control the policing power over this public land. That’s what  they’re trying to prove.” 

The Bundys’ son, Dave, was arrested by federal agents for filming  them near his father’s land and cited with misdemeanor counts of  refusing to disperse and resisting arrest on April 6. 

Lead investigator Larry Wooten revealed in December 2017 that officers involved in the arrest “bragged  about roughing up Dave Bundy, grinding his face into the ground and  Dave Bundy having little bits of gravel stuck in his face.” A memo from Wooten referenced a pattern of “far-reaching misconduct, recklessness and unrestrained antipathy toward the family.”  

As the news spread and the public began to learn of the increasing  presence of federal agents on the land, and the hundreds of cattle that  were being held captive, men and women from across the United States  converged on the Bundy Ranch to protest the BLM. On April 12, hundreds of armed protestors participated in a standoff  at the mouth of Gold Butte, the location where the cattle were seized.  Dozens of militiamen also protested on a nearby highway overpass,  causing traffic to stall for miles. 

As BLM agents began to warn that they were armed with tear gas and  were prepared to use it on the protesters, Las Vegas Metro Deputy Chief  Tom Roberts announced that Cliven Bundy’s nearly 400 cattle would be returned within the next hour, in an effort to de-escalate the situation. Following the standoff, Cliven Bundy continued to let his cattle  graze on federal land without a permit. Although he and his sons were  charged with a total of 15 counts of criminal conspiracy and other  violations, all of their charges were finally dropped in December 2017. 

U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro ruled that the case against the Bundy family was an example of “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct”  after federal prosecutors were caught withholding evidence from defense  attorneys, which violated the Brady rule. Navarro dismissed all charges  “with prejudice” so that the government cannot attempt to prosecute the case again and she concluded that “a universal sense of justice was violated.” 

There are a number of ways in which the standoff could have ended,  but the fact that Bundy, his family, and their supporters stood up to  the federal government and lived to the tell the story has stood an  incredible moment in history for every American who has ever questioned  by the federal government’s overreaching abuse of power. 

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