tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/ryan-and-ammon-bundy-32913/articlesRyan and Ammon Bundy – The Conversation2019-10-23T12:32:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1250322019-10-23T12:32:06Z2019-10-23T12:32:06ZThey’re not all racist nut jobs – and 4 other observations about the patriot militia movement<p>The so-called patriot movement is grabbing headlines once again, as its members pledge to <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/anti-government-group-escort-minneapolis-trump-rally-1464170">protect Trump supporters</a> at the president’s campaign rallies <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/10/11/militia-style-group-oath-keepers-will-be-in-dallas-for-trump-rally/">across the country</a>.</p>
<p>For the past three years, we have studied the rise of the patriots while reporting, writing and editing a nonfiction book, “<a href="https://www.benbellabooks.com/shop/up-in-arms/">Up In Arms: How the Bundy Family Hijacked Public Lands, Outfoxed the Federal Government and Ignited America’s Patriot Militia Movement</a>.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297955/original/file-20191021-56234-15vbaym.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Oath Keepers issued an alert for volunteers to patrol a Trump rally in Minneapolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20191021163217/https://oathkeepers.org/2019/10/alert-volunteers-needed-to-protect-trump-supporters-at-minneapolis-trump-rally/">Internet Archive</a></span>
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<p>The patriot movement is a fragmented and fractious coalition of groups that distrust the federal government. Members believe the government is impeding their “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/05/21/armed-with-guns-and-constitutions-the-patriot-movement-sees-america-under-threat/">land rights, gun rights, freedom of speech and other liberties</a>.”</p>
<p>As the book took shape and we talked about our reporting with friends and colleagues, most were dismissive of the people at the center of the story: Cliven and Ammon Bundy. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/mormon-religionjustify-extreme-anti-government-ideology-cliven-bundy-case-746698">Bundys are Mormon ranchers</a> who became the movement’s guiding lights after the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/bundy-ranch-standoff-case-charges-dismissed.html">2014 standoff at Bundy Ranch</a> and <a href="https://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/">2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge</a>. Our friends and colleagues saw the Bundys and their supporters as “racist nut jobs” and nothing more. As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/05/21/armed-with-guns-and-constitutions-the-patriot-movement-sees-america-under-threat/">reporter Kevin Sullivan wrote in a 2016 story for the Washington Post</a>, law enforcement agrees with this assessment, calling the patriots “dangerous, delusional and sometimes violent.”</p>
<p>While these descriptors certainly fit individual patriots, our take on the movement is less black and white. Here’s what we learned:</p>
<h2>1. The so-called “patriot movement,” also known as the “patriot militia movement,” isn’t really a movement and is not made up entirely of militia members.</h2>
<p>While movements are usually associated with a specific ideology or shared purpose, that’s not quite the case with the patriots. They are motivated by a varied and sometimes conflicting array of issues. Many focus on <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/once-again-gun-control-spurs-%E2%80%98patriots%E2%80%99">gun rights</a> and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/antigovernment">immigration</a>; others get riled up about <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2010/02/25/microchip-implantation-feared-sign-end-times">privacy</a>, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2010/02/18/irs-long-target-antigovernment-extremists">taxes</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/05/21/armed-with-guns-and-constitutions-the-patriot-movement-sees-america-under-threat/?utm_term=.ba90d037c11c">government overreach</a>. They disagree often and are united only by a general resentment of the federal government. </p>
<p>Even the patriots’ chosen name reflects the disjointed nature of their union. Because some anti-government groups were (and continue to be) associated with racist and anti-Semitic causes or violence, <a href="http://www.rop.org/up-in-arms/up-in-arms-section-i/patriot-movement-historically-nationally/patriot-movement-past-present/">leaders adopted the “patriot” name</a> for public relations purposes in the 1990s.</p>
<p>And many who identify as patriots support but do not officially belong to militias, which are organized paramilitary groups that believe they are the last line of defense against an overreaching federal government.</p>
<h2>2. Each group has its own agenda, but they are united by a fear of environmental regulation.</h2>
<p>The Bundys love to remind anyone who will listen that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/upshot/why-the-government-owns-so-much-land-in-the-west.html">almost half of the landmass of the western states is controlled by the federal government</a>. </p>
<p>The patriots have created a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/antigovernment">corresponding master theory</a> about what they see as an unconstitutional land grab: A small group of global, ultra-wealthy people is purposely implementing environmental regulations and gun laws to make it impossible for rural Americans to earn a living or fight back. Patriots believe those elites want the land, the gold, the oil and the coal for themselves.</p>
<p>In June, Oregon Republican lawmakers fled the State Capitol so there wouldn’t be the quorum needed to vote on a climate change bill that would have forced companies to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-rogue-republicans-killed-oregons-climate-change-bill">adopt technologies to reduce overall pollution</a>. The legislation was extremely unpopular with rural voters and patriot militia groups who said they were guarding multiple senators who had holed up in Idaho. The <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/06/oregon-republican-senators-walkout-what-you-need-to-know-today.html">Oregon State Capitol shut down</a> amid fears that militia groups would cause chaos.</p>
<p><a href="https://news3lv.com/archive/timeline-history-of-land-dispute-between-cliven-bundy-and-the-blm">Cliven Bundy himself first clashed</a> with the federal government in the early 1990s, when federal land agencies instituted new environmental regulations that would have made it financially impossible for him to continue ranching. </p>
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<span class="caption">Cliven Bundy, before giving the keynote address to the state convention of the Independent American Party of Nevada, Feb. 23, 2018, in Sparks, Nevada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Ranching-Standoff-Bundy-Speech/012307a8bd814ab1ab839e123cc042bf/6/0">AP/Scott Sonner</a></span>
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<p>Almost all of the other ranchers in his area sold their operations, but Cliven took another tack: He quit paying grazing fees to the federal government and declared that the feds shouldn’t own land in the first place. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/8/14/18080508/nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-explained">This set up the clash, two decades later</a>, that made him a leader in the patriot movement.</p>
<h2>3. Some groups are stubbornly bigoted, but others hate to be seen as racist.</h2>
<p>Patriot groups tend to be nearly <a href="https://www.routledge.com/American-Extremism-History-Politics-and-the-Militia-Movement/Mulloy/p/book/9780415483803">all white and mostly male</a>, with at least <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/moorish-sovereign-citizens">one notable exception</a>. We encountered only a handful of people of color during our reporting of “Up In Arms.” We also met many patriots who wished their organizations were more diverse, if only to better counter the perception of widespread racism in their ranks.</p>
<p>This is especially true for the Bundys. Weeks after the 2014 standoff, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html">Cliven gave an infamous speech to his supporters about “the Negro,”</a> suggesting that African Americans might have been better off under slavery. <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/04/cliven-bundy-how-conservaties-reacted-racism.html">Politicians and media figures</a> who formerly supported Bundy backed away en masse. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=agXns-W60MI">Video of Cliven’s speech</a> shows an old man who, however offensively, appears to be trying to embrace minority communities and bring them into the anti-federal government fold.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rop.org/up-in-arms/up-in-arms-section-i/patriot-movement-historically-nationally/racism-identity-movement/">Some patriots have renounced racism and anti-Semitism</a>, seeing those as drags on their more-popular pro-gun and anti-federal government messages. That said, we witnessed an uptick in anti-Muslim and anti-Latino online activity among individual patriots, especially after Trump’s election.</p>
<h2>4. Patriots are not all Trump supporters.</h2>
<p>A few months after Trump took office, we witnessed an argument at a patriot gathering over one man unfurling a Trump flag. No matter how much Trump seemed to share the patriots’ loathing of the federal government, he was now that government’s leader, and certain purists couldn’t abide it. </p>
<p>The Bundys have a complex relationship with Trump. In 2014, when he was still a developer and reality TV star, Trump announced his allegiance with what Fox News had <a href="https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20140412_060000_On_the_Record_With_Greta_Van_Susteren">labeled “Team Cliven Bundy.”</a></p>
<p>“I like (Cliven’s) spirit, his spunk,” <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/donald-trump-on-the-lack-of-respect-for-america.amp">Trump said on Sean Hannity’s show</a>, “and I like the people that – you know, they’re so loyal…” </p>
<p>But during the 2016 campaign, <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/12/woke-ammon-bundy-unlikely-resistance-figure.html">Cliven, a devout Mormon, was disturbed by</a> political advertisements that showed Trump speaking crudely about women and seemingly mocking a disabled reporter. On the other hand, Trump supported the Second Amendment and exhibited disdain for the federal government. In November 2016, the <a href="http://bundyranch.blogspot.com/2016/11/get-out-and-vote.html">Bundy Ranch blog</a> posted a somewhat oblique Trump endorsement, a picture of Cliven on horseback hoisting the Stars and Stripes under the superimposed words: “Blow your ‘Trumpence!’ VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!” </p>
<p>But two years later, Cliven’s son, Ammon, surprised many when he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/28/ammon-bundy-breaks-with-trump-anti-migrant-rhetoric-its-all-fear-based/">disavowed Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric</a>.</p>
<h2>Complex makeup</h2>
<p>As the patriot movement returns to the public eye, it is important to understand that its members’ political views – including a profound <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">distrust of government</a> and <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4118&context=lcp">environmental regulations</a> – have a long history in the U.S. </p>
<p>Further, those views are not monolithic. Many of their ideas are from the fringe of political debate. But during the time we spent talking to patriots, we found that, despite public perceptions, few appeared to be mentally ill or outwardly racist. Instead, their grievances and principles stem from a range of motivations, personal circumstances and political philosophies.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The popular perception of right-wing patriot militia members is that they are racist, violent and crazy. The authors of a new book about them say that’s not the whole story.Hollee S. Temple, Teaching Professor of Law, West Virginia UniversityJohn Temple, Professor, Reed College of Media, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845272017-10-06T00:55:13Z2017-10-06T00:55:13ZBundy trial embodies everything dividing America today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189081/original/file-20171005-9797-1p0w1t2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A supporter of Cliven Bundy protests in Nevada. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Locher</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s that time of year again: The Bundys are <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2017/08/the_bundys_--_cliven_sons_ammo.html">going to trial</a>. </p>
<p>This fall, brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and their father, <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2017/08/the_bundys_--_cliven_sons_ammo.html">Cliven</a>, will face charges over a standoff with federal officials in a dispute over federal lands in Nevada.</p>
<p>Many are wondering if they’ll be let off the hook. The two Bundy brothers were acquitted in an October 2016 trial for a different standoff in Oregon. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/bundy-brothers-acquitted-in-takeover-of-oregon-wildlife-refuge.html?mcubz=0">jury’s</a> “not guilty” verdict on conspiracy charges for the Oregon standoff struck much of the public as shockingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/28/oregon-militia-standoff-bundy-trial-not-guilty-reactions">lenient</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/law/faculty_and_staff/directory/eisenberg_ann.php">law professor</a> who researches rural land use and juries, I’ve found that both conflicts over public lands and jury decisions often bring up the same question: Who gets to decide what justice is in America?</p>
<h2>Geography and juries</h2>
<p>Geography matters in the U.S. justice system. </p>
<p>The Bundy trials – and the trials of their supporters, several of whom also <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-the-bundys-and-their-heavily-armed-supporters-keep-getting-away-with-it">walked free</a> for the 2014 standoff earlier this year – have made this clear. Trial outcomes <a href="http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1114&context=djclpp">can vary</a> depending on where they take place. The Bundy trials to date may well have gone differently in front of juries from Manhattan or Miami.</p>
<p>Part of the geographical subtext is that the Bundy family is not alone in their <a href="http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1114&context=faculty_lawreviews">anti-federal sentiment</a>. <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/265429-poll-most-westerners-support-federal-land-policy">Most westerners</a> want to see federal lands stay federal and people are rightly disturbed by the tactics of the Bundys and other militant, anti-federal <a href="http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3d2722zk">“Sagebrush Rebels.”</a> Yet, <a href="http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/land_use/2016/01/as-bundys-malheur-takeover-ends-the-real-concerns-of-sagebrush-country-ranchers-linger.html">other scholars</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2980887">and I</a> have argued that there is a kernel of truth to their complaints. </p>
<p>Namely, the Bundys and their supporters claim that the federal government is <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20140709/war-west-bundy-ranch-standoff-and-american-radical-right">“tyrannical.”</a> A less militant version of that sentiment is that federal agencies could be more fair, consistent and inclusive with local communities in the region. The Department of Interior manages about <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.641.3335&rep=rep1&type=pdf">one-fifth</a> of the land in the United States through the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Monitoring and enforcing regulations on this vast territory is <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2423831">difficult</a>. Many western communities think federal agencies manage public lands <a href="http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1114&context=faculty_lawreviews">arbitrarily or unfairly</a>. </p>
<p>A frequent criticism of these agencies, who have a daunting mandate with limited resources, is that they are inconsistent. Another is that they can be unpredictable. For instance, the Bureau of Land Management <a href="https://georgetownlawjournal.org/articles/170/response-essay-personhood-rationale/pdf">allowed</a> Cliven to graze his cattle illegally for 20 years, which could look like tacit approval. Local communities have also felt excluded from agency decision-making or <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2715090">looked down on</a> by federal representatives.</p>
<p>In an unusual move, one juror in the October 2016 trial <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/11/transcript_of_juror_4s_emails.html#incart_2box">spoke out</a> after the trial. The anonymous juror accused the prosecution of “arrogance” and an “air of triumphalism,” which may suggest a view of federal representatives as <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2930217">elitist outsiders</a>. However, he also emphasized that “not guilty” did not mean “innocent.” He insisted that the acquittal was not a sign that the jury agreed with the Bundys’ stances. Nonetheless, the <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/09/ammon_bundys_lawyer_argues_for.html">populist-cowboy</a> tone of the Bundy trials underscores the subjectivity of justice; one person’s terrorist may be another person’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-the-bundys-and-their-heavily-armed-supporters-keep-getting-away-with-it">folk hero</a>.</p>
<h2>Race and juries</h2>
<p>Race also plays a role in the Bundy cases. </p>
<p>Some observers shocked by Ammon’s and Ryan’s 2016 acquittal noticed that their jury <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-malheur-bundy-occupation-acquittal-20161028-story.html">entirely comprised white people</a>. “All-white jury” tends to be used synonymously with “unjust jury.” </p>
<p>Like geography, <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=nulr_online">race matters</a> to juries. It’s <a href="http://www.albany.edu/scj/documents/Eisenberg_Garvey_Wells_2001_JLegSt.pdf">not as simple</a> as “white people vote this way and black people vote that way,” or that all-white juries are automatically unfair. However, social science studies have shown that jury demographics <a href="http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1349&context=heinzworks">affect outcomes</a>. For instance, white jurors are substantially <a href="http://www.albany.edu/scj/documents/Eisenberg_Garvey_Wells_2001_JLegSt.pdf">more likely</a> to favor the death penalty in murder cases. Generally, <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-904597.pdf">more diverse juries</a> are believed to deliberate for longer, make fewer factual errors and discuss more information, including questions of race. </p>
<p>Yet, studies have shown that courts in the United States often don’t do a good job of making juries <a href="http://juries.typepad.com/files/assembly_statement_draft_4-29-09-1.pdf">representative</a> of the population. “All-white” can also mean unrepresentative. Unrepresentative, in turn, suggests undemocratic. Race and geography interact, too: What counts as representative depends on the local population, and different courts have <a href="http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1739&context=journal_articles">different procedures</a> for picking their juries. </p>
<p>In the 2016 Bundy trial, the optics were troubling for many. At a time when people of color comprise most of the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/how-many-americans-are-unnecessarily-incarcerated">prison population</a>, it may have looked as if the all-white jury in this case was lenient with the Bundys. The Bundys’ <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-morton-1218-20161217-story.html">white privilege</a> was questioned as law enforcement’s relatively gentle treatment of them at the 2014 standoff stood in contrast to the police killings of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/06/541929782/policing-ferguson-policing-america-the-unrest-over-the-death-of-michael-brown">Michael Brown</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html">Eric Garner</a> that same year. Majority-white juries have also seemed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html?mcubz=0">lenient with police officers</a> accused of killing people of color. Thus, it is not a stretch to infer from this case confirmation of a dual legal system: a lenient one for white people and a harsh one for people of color, both of which exclude people of color from decision-making.</p>
<p>Juries are <a href="https://www.law.ua.edu/lawreview/files/2011/07/The-Jurys-Constitutional-Judgment.pdf">designed</a> to be a check on government overreach. Yet, when juries are not representative, they may become just another vehicle by which the powerful wield influence. In this light, the Bundys’ October 2016 trial by all-white jury does look problematic, as only <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/OR">76.4 percent</a> of Oregon’s population identifies as “white alone.”</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has addressed questions of how juries represent the population and established some standards to ensure minimal representativeness. For example, the pool of people called to the courthouse for jury selection (known as “the venire”) must represent a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1974/73-5744">“fair cross-section of the community.”</a> However, juries consistently underrepresent <a href="http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/fulltime/diamond/papers/BeyondFantasy.pdf">people of color, the young, the poor</a> and <a href="https://www.wacdl.org/files/jury-diversity-article">other groups</a>. This lack of representativeness in turn affects outcomes and undermines the <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1094&context=publicpolicypublications">public’s trust</a> in the criminal justice system.</p>
<h2>Law and distrust</h2>
<p>So much is at play in the trials of the Bundys and their supporters: the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/">debatable phenomenon</a> of white, rural, male, working-class alienation; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/opinion/in-oregon-myth-mixes-with-anger.html?mcubz=0">longstanding conflicts</a> over public lands; the role of race in the criminal justice system; and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/rural-america/?utm_term=.e8701eb35475">deep racial and geographical divisions</a> that weigh on the country. </p>
<p>Perhaps the clearest theme is that distrust of our legal institutions abounds, fueled by both the perception and reality of being excluded.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Eisenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As with our politics today, geography and race matter in the US criminal justice system. Should they?Ann Eisenberg, Assistant Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678962016-11-08T11:09:28Z2016-11-08T11:09:28ZWhy the court ‘victory’ for Malheur militants was anything but<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144733/original/image-20161106-27904-z2z89q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ammon Bundy speaks to local ranchers in January 2016 urging them – unsuccessfully – to take up armed occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter A. Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ammon Bundy lost. This might sound strange in light of many recent headlines pronouncing the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/bundys-found-not-guilty-oregon-standoff-trial/">stunning acquittals</a> of Bundy and his six codefendants in a federal court, as well as Bundy’s own <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">triumphal statements</a> following the verdicts. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, by the measure of Bundy’s own stated goals, his occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, was an abject failure. </p>
<p>Bundy was defeated not by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or by federal prosecutors. Instead, he was defeated by the majority of ordinary citizens in Harney County who stood steadfastly against Bundy’s plan. </p>
<p>I spent several weeks there during the occupation last January and witnessed this rejection firsthand. Bundy lost in large part because the community has been working hard for decades to find collaborative solutions that address grievances with federal land management without resorting to the confrontational methods of the militants. </p>
<h2>A crucial meeting</h2>
<p>When Ammon Bundy led the seizure of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, he was anything but shy about his demands. He stood almost daily before throngs of reporters and banks of microphones and television cameras declaring that his objectives were to free <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/eastern-oregon-ranchers-convicted-arson-resentenced-five-years-prison">convicted Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond</a> and to give the land in the refuge “back” to loggers, ranchers and miners. </p>
<p>More quietly but very clearly, Bundy declared that his goal was to make Harney County into an example of a “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-oregon-standoff-20160116-story.html">federal-free</a>” county that would serve as a model for other communities already “on the edge.” Essentially, he declared sovereignty from a federal government that he repeatedly insisted had invalidated itself through “overreach” of its constitutional authority. Bundy’s goal was not to win a battle in a federal court or to rally his followers; his goal was to inspire a grassroots revolution that would create a largely federal-free rural America.</p>
<p>Thus, by Bundy’s own definition of success, he failed. The Hammonds are still in prison, and Bundy’s own actions virtually guarantee President Obama will not grant them clemency. Not a single acre of land in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was transferred to local ownership. The federal government remains in authority over as much rural land as it did the day Bundy staged his armed takeover.</p>
<p>The key to Bundy’s failure was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXJwMSjwYQw&feature=youtu.be">staunch resistance</a> from the very people he presumed would gladly become the foot soldiers in his revolution: Harney County ranchers. </p>
<p>On Jan. 18, 2016, Bundy held a crucial meeting with about 30 Harney County ranchers in the tiny rural hamlet of Crane, Oregon, which I attended. Bundy insisted that the federal government had become a “corrupt” and “tyrannical” force, and that it could be driven out by even a small number of local ranchers if only they “took a stand.” His voice rising, Bundy implored the ranchers: “Now is the time, Harney County is the place, and you are the people.” Bundy assured the ranchers that he and his armed supporters would provide “defense,” and that the government would back down.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144736/original/image-20161106-27904-12lzeax.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ranchers from Harney County challenged Bundy’s call for rebellion on Jan. 23, 2016, and not one joined him when he asked them to come to a ceremony to tear up their ranching contracts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter A. Walker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bundy, along with his brother Ryan and LaVoy Finicum, literally begged Harney County ranchers to come to the Malheur refuge on Jan. 23 for a ceremony pledging to tear up their federal grazing contracts. While some of the ranchers in the room expressed agreement about Bundy’s frustrations with federal land management, none was willing to heed Bundy’s call to tear up their federal grazing contracts. </p>
<p>One Harney County rancher told Bundy there must be “other means” to achieve their goals. Another Harney County rancher directly confronted Bundy, stating “I’m not going to fight an uphill battle that’s not going to be won.” On Jan. 23, not a single Harney County rancher took up Bundy’s call. One rancher from New Mexico came and took the pledge, but several months later <a href="http://www.thewildlifenews.com/2016/03/28/forest-service-increases-rogue-ranchers-use-by-70-for-2016/">renewed his U.S. Forest Service grazing contract</a>. </p>
<h2>Poster child for effective work</h2>
<p>Why did no Harney County rancher take up Bundy’s call? Tellingly, at the Crane meeting the rancher who declared his refusal to pursue a “battle that’s not going to be won” proposed instead to form local boards to provide input to federal land management agencies – a collaborative approach that has been widely and successfully used in Harney County. </p>
<p>In fact, Harney County is widely known as a poster child of collaborative methods to address precisely the tensions between local communities and federal agencies that Bundy spoke about. The ranchers were not denying problems exist – they were declaring that they had better, peaceful methods to resolve those problems, and they did not need Bundy to tell them what to do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144737/original/image-20161106-27947-j63rym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harney County in eastern Oregon is a poster child for finding solutions to conservation and economic goals by collaborating with federal agencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">Brent Lawrence/USFWS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The evidence of their effective and practical methods goes far back. In 2000, Harney County ranchers and the federal government established the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection agreement. In 2005, Harney County ranchers established the widely celebrated <a href="http://highdesertpartnership.org/who-we-are/mission.html">High Desert Partnership</a> to promote collaborative problem-solving. In 2013 Harney County ranchers along with the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge staff created the pioneering <a href="https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Region_1/NWRS/Zone_2/Malheur/Documents/MalheurNWR_FCCP_table_contents.pdf">Malheur Comprehensive Conservation Plan</a>. In 2015 Harney County ranchers created a <a href="https://www.fws.gov/endangered/map/ESA_success_stories/OR/OR_story4/index.html">plan</a> for managing sage grouse that became a model for many other rural communities. </p>
<p>These projects seek to meet both conservation goals and the economic needs of the community. When Bundy spoke of “overreaching” federal authority and the need for armed rebellion, many Harney County ranchers saw Bundy’s approach as an unnecessary bridge too far. As one Harney County rancher stated, “collaboration is what inoculated us from the Bundy virus.”</p>
<h2>Problems with Bundy’s methods</h2>
<p>To be clear, there was and is <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/ammon_bundy_testifies_about_ho.html">considerable sympathy</a> in Harney County for the concerns expressed by Ammon Bundy and his followers. In several county elections after the end of the Malheur occupation that were widely viewed as <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/election-2016/harney-county-vote-armed-occupation-opposition/">referendums on the Bundy ideology</a>, the proportion of the local electorate that supported candidates and positions seen as sympathetic to Bundy’s views <a href="http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/oregon-harney-voters-reject-recall-against-judge-steve-grasty/">ranged from about 20 percent to 30 percent</a>.</p>
<p>Even among these sympathizers, however, the number of Harney County citizens who supported Bundy’s methods was much smaller based on what I have observed and been told after spending months in the community. At the time of the occupation even some members of the Harney County Committee of Safety (a parallel-governmental organization established by Bundy and still operating) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT8A75sVIE">spoke strongly against Bundy’s methods</a>.</p>
<p>The community’s overwhelming rejection of Ammon Bundy’s radical methods in Harney County was the death knell for his revolution – at least for now. Consider if the community had flocked to Bundy’s side as he implored them to do. Federal authorities would have had a law enforcement problem of an unprecedented scale and any violent outcome could well have sparked widespread rebellion across rural America. As U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell later observed, through collaboration <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/03/contrary_to_oregon_standoff_cl.html">disaster was averted</a>.</p>
<p>Bundy lost. For that we have the community and ranchers of Harney County to thank.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Militants who took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon – and were acquitted of charges – ultimately failed because local ranchers saw a better way to deal with federal agencies.Peter Walker, Professor of Geography, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/681342016-11-03T23:01:09Z2016-11-03T23:01:09ZHistory points to more dangerous Malheur-style standoffs<p>The acquittal of Ammon Bundy and other militia members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon last January leaves our public lands and the people who steward them in a vulnerable position. Indeed, it puts a target on their backs.</p>
<p>The Bundy family has said as much. “The government should be scared,” Ryan Bundy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">asserted</a> to the Washington Post less than a week after their acquittal. “They are in the wrong. The land does not belong to the government. The land belongs to the people of Clark County, not to the people of the United States.” When asked whether he and fellow militiamen had the right to take up arms to assert their control of the public land, Bundy declared: “Ask George Washington.” </p>
<p>This brazen and unapologetic rhetoric is a striking contrast to the Oregon jury’s carefully tailored language about their decision to free those men who bore arms against the federal government. As <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">one juror</a> told the Portland Oregonian in response to the post-verdict uproar: “Don’t they know that ‘not guilty’ does not mean innocent?” </p>
<p>Clearly the militants, whose actions echo 20th-century Sagebrush Rebellions to take local control of public lands, know no such thing. For them the verdict offered an affirming message which, in my view, imperils the public servants who protect our lands in the face of a long history of threats and violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144468/original/image-20161103-25346-1jy7d1k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sagebrush Rebellion rally in 1980 on July 4 in Grand County, Utah. The roots of today’s disputes echo violent protests in the 1970s and 1980s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sagebrush_Rebellion_July_4th,_1980_Grand_County_Utah.JPG">TheRealDeJureTour/wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Debate over public lands has been a crucial part of my scholarship, but it also contains a personal dimension: For the past three decades I have been helping to train Forest Service leaders at all levels of the organization. A key part of my contribution to their studies has been the impact of the Sagebrush Rebellion, past and present, on the management and managers of our public lands. This close relationship leaves me deeply concerned for their safety.</p>
<h2>History of violence</h2>
<p>My worry is also framed within the larger political context: The Bundy verdict will play into the hands of those political forces – state legislatures, governors and congressional representatives – who have been <a href="https://www.gop.com/platform/americas-natural-resources/">scheming</a> to force the sale or the giving away of U.S. public lands to the individual states. The Republican Party platform is on record as being in full support of this <a href="https://theconversation.com/dems-and-the-gop-are-miles-apart-on-yet-another-issue-public-lands-65772">dismantling of our system of national forests, parks and refuges</a>.</p>
<p>Ammon Bundy and his followers make the same case. In a post-trial press conference, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/28/off-the-charts-unbelievable-will-acquittal-of-oregon-refuge-occupiers-embolden-extremists-militias/">the defendants</a> underscored their posture as patriots, who by dint of arms have defended the Constitution from an overly aggressive federal government. </p>
<p>As for the group’s possession of weapons, that is described in the most benign terms: “For these defendants and these people, having a firearm has nothing to do with a threat or anything else,” Bundy defense attorney Matthew Schindler <a href="http://absoluterights.com/bundy-clan-is-free/">declared</a>. “It’s as much a statement of their rural culture as a cowboy hat or a pair of jeans. I think the jury believed at the end of the day that that’s why the guns were there.” </p>
<p>However folksy his language, it masks the historical reality that such threats to public servants protecting public lands have been commonplace for more than a century. </p>
<p>No sooner had Congress in 1891 granted the executive branch the power to redesignate federal lands as national forests and to establish regulations for their use, than some westerners rose up in opposition. The grazing, mining and lumbering industries chafed at the small fees they were required to pay for the resources they once took at will. As I observe in my analysis of the Malheur occupation in my new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Not-Golden-State-Sustainability-California/dp/1595347828">“Not So Golden State</a>,” they fought back in the federal court system courts, and lost every test case. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144476/original/image-20161103-25356-v2vf87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Threats to employees of federal land agencies goes back to the late 19th century when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service, visited each hotspot, even one in Alaska where locals hung him in effigy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">US Forest Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the ground, they took out their frustrations on the local representatives of the nascent Forest Service. The verbal and bodily threats against its employees were so omnipresent that the agency’s first chief, <a href="https://fhsarchives.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/gifford-pinchots-ten-commandments/">Gifford Pinchot</a>, made it a point to visit every hotspot to demonstrate that he had employees’ backs. And when the good citizens of Cordova, Alaska, hung Pinchot in effigy, he made certain to travel there, too.</p>
<p>Similar attacks continued across the last century. In the 1940s, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and social critic Bernard DeVoto wrote a series of essays in Harper’s that exposed how the “Landgrabbers” of his generation intimidated Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management rangers across the West, bullied the agencies’ Washington offices and used their clout to bend the U.S. House subcommittee on public lands to their will. Their threats to employ the “sterner justice” of mob violence only underscored that their “ultimate hope,” DeVoto <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/1948/07/sacred-cows-and-public-lands/">affirmed</a>, “is to destroy the established conservation policies of the United States.”</p>
<p>President Ronald Reagan fanned these flames when he came to power in 1981, arguing that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” That was music to the ears of those, like earlier generations of the Bundy family, who disdained federal land managers. </p>
<p>Egged on by right-wing talk radio commentators, verbal and physical attacks escalated. Vigilantes bombed Forest Service offices, a ranger discovered an explosive device under his truck and Elko County (Nevada) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/16/us/court-puts-down-rebellion-over-control-of-federal-land.html">commissioners</a> used bulldozers to crash through Forest Service fencing. The agency responded by urging its staff to wear civilian clothes on the job and drive their personal vehicles to work.</p>
<h2>Fuel to the fire</h2>
<p>There is reason to suspect that this kind of coercion and violence will resume in the wake of the Malheur acquittals, just as it did in the initial aftermath of the Malheur occupation in January. Last winter, according to the nonpartisan conservation and advocacy group the <a href="https://medium.com/@WesternPriorities/armed-militants-pose-ongoing-dangerous-threat-to-government-employees-working-to-protect-americas-dc3858ff2a5b#.kabmzfjrv">Center for Western Priorities</a>, land managers reported a troubling increase in confrontations with Sagebrush-like groups on federal lands. </p>
<p>Bureau of Land Management employees received death threats and even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2016/11/01/c45bdf4e-a04c-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html">withdrew</a> from the contentious Gold Butte rangelands on which the Bundys graze their cattle, whose archaeological treasures have since then been trashed. The Fish and Wildlife Service reported a number of confrontations with “militia” groups on refuges, which understandably intensified rangers’ fears for their welfare.</p>
<p>Their anxieties have increased post-verdict. “The danger is that we get armed invasions of all kinds of public lands and similar institutions,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-oregon-verdict-a-hot-debate-a-victory-for-liberty-or-license-to-intimidate/2016/10/28/3cc1372c-9d37-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html">argues</a> Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “The real danger is bloodshed.” His colleague, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/06/15/splc-public-support-perceived-victory-bundy-ranch-2014-emboldened-extremists-standoff">Heidi Beirich</a>, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, drives the point home: “This is a growing movement that is probably going to grow more due to this verdict because they have shown they can use armed interventions and not be punished for them.”</p>
<p>One of the <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html">Bundy jurors</a> even anticipated this dire possibility: “It was not lost on us that our verdict(s) might inspire future actions that are regrettable, but that sort of thinking was not permitted when considering the charges before us.”</p>
<p>Fair enough. But whatever regrettable “future actions” occur, it will not be the jurors who will endure them but the dedicated men and women stewarding our public lands, our most treasured terrain. Who will step up and protect them?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Char Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Acquitted in the Malheur takeover trial, Ryan Bundy urges protests against efforts to conserve public lands. Who will protect federal employees?Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.