One Conflict That I Want to See Resolved with a Maximum of Bloodshed

It appears that the Bundy clan, in what seems like a never ending quests to intimidate the have occupied a federal building in a dispute over a poaching trial

This is not a conflict that the government can deescalate. These folks goals is to use the threat of violence to get as much as they can, and then they will go to explicit violence.

This is an insurrection, and a fair number of the fellow travelers are not ready for this, but every time the government backs down, this movement picks up supporters and momentum.

It is not a question as to whether the US government will have to go after them with lethal force, but when.

Sooner is better than later here:

A group of armed anti-government activists remained encamped at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Sunday evening, vowing to occupy the outpost for years to protest the federal government’s treatment of a pair of local ranchers set to report to prison Monday.

The occupation of a portion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles southeast of Burns, Ore., began a day earlier, after a small group of men broke off from a much larger march and rally held on Saturday evening

The armed occupation is being led by Ammon Bundy, an Idaho rancher whose father, Cliven Bundy, led an armed standoff with federal agents in Nevada in 2014 and who has described his supporters as “militia men.”

“Those who want to go take hard stand, get in your trucks and follow me!” Ammon Bundy declared to rally-goers at the conclusion of Saturday’s event, according to several people who were in attendance. Not long afterward, the group had taken over the federal wildlife preserve.

Harney County Sheriff David M. Ward said authorities from several law enforcement organizations were monitoring the ongoing incident.

“These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers,” Ward said in a statement Sunday. “When in reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.”

Organizers of the rally say several hundred attended the procession through Burns, Ore. — a ranching town of less than 3,000 residents — in a show of support for Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven Hammond, 46, who in the conclusion of a decades of clashes with the federal government were sentenced last October to serve five years in prison.

Prosecutors accused the Hammonds of committing arson on federal land in 2001 and 2006. The men and their attorneys argued that the fires had been set  on their own property — once to prevent the spread of an invasive species of plant and once in attempt to prevent the spread of a wildfire — and had inadvertently burned onto public lands. But prosecutors said the fires were set in attempt to destroy evidence that the Hammonds had been illegally hunting deer on the federal lands.

This needs to be shut down before it metastasizes, if it hasn't already done so.

As an aside, I think that we need to minimize the private use of federal land in the west, because history shows that people who derive public benefit for their private benefit are inclined to go to extremes to cling to their undeserved windfall.

Just look at the behavior of the 2^nd Estate around the time of the French Revolution.  They did more to create the Reign of Terror than any other segment of society.