Posted on 01/27/2016 5:55:49 AM PST by xzins
Four days after taking the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon, LaVoy Finicum, a 55-year-old Arizona rancher told NBC News that he'd rather die than spend his days in prison.
"There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them," he said in early January as he sat huddled in a blue tarp outside of the wildlife refuge keeping watch with his gun in his lap. "I'm prepared to defend freedom."
Finicum told NBC that night that he was staying outside to ensure that the FBI could find him if they came to arrest him.
Finicum was shot and killed Tuesday night when law enforcement stopped two cars carrying standoff leaders on their way from the refuge to a meeting in Grant County. Ryan Bundy, another militiaman, was shot and transported to the hospital, but did not suffer any life-threatening injuries, according to The Oregonian.
Before Finicum's death was even confirmed, supporters rushed to portray him on social media as a martyr who, according to unverified accounts, had his hands up and was unarmed when he was shot. Law enforcement sources told CNN that Finicum and Ryan Bundy were the only two leaders who did not surrender during the confrontation.
Finicum had taken a strong interest in land disputes with the federal government after he stood at Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's side during his confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management in 2014. After returning home to Arizona, Finicum – a Mormon father with 11 children– made a decision. He was no longer going to write a check to the federal government for his grazing fees.
At the refuge, Finicum became a spokesman for the militiamen, fielding questions from press and helping plan events like one Saturday where ranchers were invited to come to the commandeered refuge to sign "declarations of emancipation" from the federal government, documents asserting they would no longer pay grazing fees. According to the Oregonian, Finicum had incurred about $12,000 in fees with the BLM.
In a video posting just hours before his death, Finicum described why the militiamen were still holding onto the refuge after more than three weeks and after local officials and community members had asked them to go. Finicum said that the occupation was intended to push back on the federal government's overreach.
"They do not want to let go of this," Finicum said. "They do not intend on loosing here and we do not intend on giving it back to them."
But Finicum's participation in the standoff had taken a toll. Back home in Arizona, child services had removed four foster children from his family's care, a move Finicum characterized as retribution. Oregon Public Broadcasting had reported that Finicum made most of his income from fostering.
Before Oregon, Finicum kept a website One Cowboy's Stand For Freedom where he documented his beliefs, his family and his ranch.
Finicum writes on the website that "he has drawn a line in the sand and that line is the Constitution in its original intent."
He also had written a cowboy thriller about the chaos of the American West after an electromagnetic pulse collapses the country's infrastructure called "Only By Blood and Suffering." The novel traced a family as each grown child navigated the new world and fights back against the overreach of the federal government.
There are some quick checks that don’t require waiting.
How many rounds are in the vehicle? The girl says dozens and dozens.
Don’t need to wait weeks on that.
“Seeing middle aged men pretending they are armed revolutionaries is just a failed message. If they did a non violent protest - occupied a federal building non violently - then if the govt uses violence on them they win. If you go in armed and stating you are willing to fight then when the govt shoots at you the level of public sympathy will be low for the protestors.”
And if our founding fathers heeded your most wise advice ,which just so happens was the rant of the “conformist
and loyalist” parties at the time, the United States of America
wouldn’t exist today. Think about that.
Are you watching it live? Some guy was just screaming at the camera.
“don’t think Americans would cotton “
I never liked the IRA because they are socialists, however, colonial revolutionaries would be called terrorists if the british had won.
I like the colonials because they actually were fighting for freedom, as evidenced by the constitution. Irish, however, wanted socialism. To me this is an oxymoron - they want to be independently dependent. This is not freedom. They just wanted their own local home rule to have power and called it freedom. I believe that goes back to the Fenians in the karl marx era.
I think the boston sympathy lies solely on the anti-brit bit of the colonial cause. Per IRA, they only get the propaganda. I don’t know if you can still find “IRA jars” on the counters in some boston bars, but I doubt it.
IRA today is mostly just a bunch of smugglers who use “irish freedom” as a recruiting tool. To find the Irish who wanted real freedom, you’d probably have to go back to the days of William of orange.
Per the ranchers, I am sympathetic to their cause because I see the eco/gov cause intruding on my day to day life, just not to the scale at which they experience it.
So even though I’m not a fan of the IRA, the tactic of having a hard line in between your negotiators and mechanics is a good one, and one way where the ranchers failed in Oregon (which is why I bring it up).
Pray for peace!
Amazing how much the media seems to want to bash these people, but that contribute convenience store robber was a “gentle giant” and George Zimmerman’s attacker was always shown as a 12 year old cherub.
Thats what I dont understand is why they even opened themselves up to LEO intervention in the first place.
They were the ones peacefully demonstrating by taking over the refuge building, which is a crime for which LEO, I am sure, did not forget about.
Did they think they would have unfettered travels to do what ever they want with their current crimes hanging over their heads?
Americans are being killed standing up for their belief in Freedom and the Constitution. FedGov is overreaching in its authority and scope. Cankles and the Bent One tried to sell Oregon's uranium to the Russians, she is all but a convicted spy and is leading in the polls for the democrat presidential candidate.(!!??!!)
Keep your powder dry!
No. Where is it on live?
He can negotiate a deal.
“I’ll wait for the science on this one as well.”
Like with Ron Brown or Vince Foster? If the only witnesses
was the fuzz you might as well say he was driving a tank
right at them while in the process of molesting a little boy. The truth is the last thing you are going to get.
but I’m sure hillary makes better deals
But somehow we have a socialist being mainstreamed by the media. That reality itself is good publicity for where they want to go whether Mrs Clinton wins or not. They’ve got the acceptability of socialist out there.
It’s an interconnected group of powerful elites who think they own the place.
Was their protest violent? Other than legally bearing arms, did they commit acts of violence? Declarations that they were prepared to defend themselves are neither violence nor threats of violence, insofar as an individual has an inherent right of self-defense.
I don't know what the truth of the matter here is. It's clear the authorities initiated the situation but I have no idea how it escalated to gunfire. The truth is almost certainly somewhere between the law enforcement story and the Occupier's story, and I have no doubt it'll be some time before it does come out.
“Hands up...don’t shoot? Where have I heard that before?...In this case it doesn’t matter to the Obama Feds.
A website called www.nothiefsallowed.com some guy just fired a gun at a drone.
I think there have been a few developments that make cattle ranching more feasible.
First, modern drilling and pumping technology make getting water a more realistic proposition. Also, as you pointed out, there are ATV’s that make it easier to handle a larger range for grazing. But another biggie is the ability to ‘bug out’. If there is a drought, or the limited grass fails, the rancher has the ability to put his herd onto trailers and move it...either to lease other land, or sell...but he doesn’t have to do an old fashioned cattle drive to move them across barren ground.
During that police shooting in Cleveland a few years ago there were something like 130 rounds fired at the car with dozens and dozens of rounds hitting it and killing the occupants. Based on the evidence that shooting was ruled to be justified. So the number of rounds in the car doesn't immediately exonerate the occupants or indict the police.
The girl says the truck was fired on. Assuming some rounds did not hit the target, there should still be dozens of rounds in the truck.
That is EXTREMELY easy to check.
If that truck is impounded and reporters refused access, then there’s something that should be noted.
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