Okay, but what exactly about the law failed? What needs to change?
Bundy claims it's that Federal Government took ownership of the land in the beginning and never gave it back to Nevada. Or rather, more accurately, he refuses to recognize that Federal government ever took possession of the land, even though his family previously paid grazing fees to the Federal government. That seems like a self-serving, revisionist stance to me.
Is it the EPA overreach on the turtle? Okay, in hindsight that does sound like overreach. I think we need better checks and balances on the EPA. But again, this was Federal owned land. Ownership conveys the right to do with the land what you want.
Maybe it's that the Federal government owns as much land as it does. That seems to be a sore point with a lot of people out west. There is a legislative remedy for that though. And if the government does sell off it's vast holdings, is there going to be enough water resources for the increased population? Something to think about.
Maybe it's that the BLM shows up with military hardware. Perhaps it should have been left to the local sheriff to enforce. But the BLM claims there were threats. Would it be any more acceptable if the Fed's had ordered the Sheriff to deputize enough people to overcome the threat?
The Feds do not have the authority to order the Sheriff to enforce Federal claims.
As I've pointed out before, all of this land was available to be homesteaded well into the 20th Century. There's a reason no one wanted it.
I’m not sure, but in the grand scheme of things the government is actually most likely the Trustee of the land under legal definitions. The Trustee has a fiduciary obligation to the “beneficiaries” in that circumstance, and to squirrel away large tracts of land as “mitigation banks” probably violates that responsibility to the beneficiaries if they are defined as the general citizenry.