According to the editorial board of the Pittsburg Post-Gazzette, The “Malheur Misfits” — an anti-government group — will get justice
Note: We’ve said it over and over again, here at RANGEFIRE! we have no interest in being a single-dimensional echo chamber. We acknowledge that there are always multiple sides to every story. In the West, there is an old saying to the effect that: “good fences make good neighbors.” At RANGEfire! we acknowledge our virtual neighbors on this virtual landscape. We think it is important for people to have an opportunity to hear all sides of the story, and know what others are saying about these issues. So we often share what others are saying.
WHAT OTHERS (PP-G) ARE SAYINGAccording to the PP-G Editorial Board, “for 41 days earlier this year, Ammon Bundy and a group of armed ranchers occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The occupiers, who brandished weapons and threatened federal officers, also made it clear that they didn’t recognize the government’s authority to own or even manage public land. They recognize no law above themselves.
When the occupiers were finally arrested Jan. 26 on a road in the refuge, not all of them surrendered peacefully. One of their members, Robert LaVoy Finicum, was shot and killed by an officer who thought he was reaching for a gun. Finicum actually believed the violent rhetoric that his cohorts gave lip service to when they weren’t surrounded and outgunned and paid for it with his life. He died while his friends turned themselves in without a fight.
Now that the trial of Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan and five others has begun, their excuses for armed defiance of the government sound even hollower. In opening arguments this week, a defense lawyer insisted that Mr. Bundy never threatened anyone and that the charge of conspiracy to impede federal officers through threat and intimidation was unjust. If this is the best defense the occupiers can muster, then things will not go well for the hapless rebels as they try to explain how the guns and ammo they opened displayed and pointed in their direction weren’t intended to intimidate.
Still, it is to the credit of the American justice system that the occupiers, who claim to be beyond the government’s jurisdiction, are entitled to a vigorous defense. Their arguments, no matter how absurd, will be heard. Because we live under a system of laws and not posses operating in the Wild West, judgment will be rendered accordingly.
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Your facts leave something to be desired. I witnessed the killing of LaVoy Finicum rom the cockpit of the hovering chopper as they folmed the entire sequence. Lavoy Finicum left his vehicle with handsheld high. He stopped as if given a command. A person standing to his left and rear fired a taser, I was able to see the red wires lying in the snow. Finicum turned to his left as the taser stung him and slowly returned to an upright position with his hands again held upward. At that moment an armed officer fired a round into Finicums face and killed him there on the spot. After he was loaded in to a vehicle, a lawman threw a 9mm pistol in with him. It had been stolen previously by an unknown. At the mortuary as the workers began to disrobe his body, A pistol was found buried under three layers of clothing on his rightside. LaVoy Finicum was shot down in cold blood. You need to get that fact correct. He was never a threat, He and others were going to visit a sheriff and others in the next County for a meeting in regards to why they were being foced off their land. Obviously that meeting in John Day, Oregon never happened. The people at the refuge have footage of the local sheriff visiting them at the refuge. They all were shaking hands as the sheriff decide to return to town. His first duty should have been to protect the citizens from the aggressive land grabbers as he has the right and the power to coax the feds to leave in a peaceful fashion. The sheriff told a different story during a radio broadcast and in court. The federal officers have no jurisdiction, the Sheriff has the ultimate power on state land as the federal land was ceded to the state upon the states recognition. We have since learned of land grabs across the country by the BLM, a management company, not law enforcers. As time goes on you will realize that I am being totally honest.