Yeah, I think they’re trying to avoid any sort of violent confrontation, but I don’t see how that’s possible with these people. Especially if you let them continue to resupply and pick up their mail (which could contain cash donations that they can spend on supplies).
I suppose you could refuse to give them their mail, but you’d have to find some legal basis to do that.
If you look at a map of the area, they are boxed in by roads and a river. The area is not that big. The roads could be patrolled/blocked to prevent anyone from even getting to the point where they can go cross country.
Right. There are probably also barbed-wire fences crisscrossing the area. Of course they could cut them, but then they would be liable for additional vandalism charges (as well as pissing off the ranchers that put them up).
You don’t have to make it absolutely impossible for them to get in or out, just more difficult. There’s no reason they should be just cruising in and out at will. The Refuge is officially closed. They shouldn’t be allowing anyone in.
Only what can be learned visiting Burns every year for 35 … spending an inordinate amount of time sitting on a bar stool listening to the local ranchers tell their tales … roaming the area trying to hunt coyote for a living … I guess the only think I really know it to wear heavy leather boots when I visit my mother’s grave out there.
So, pray tell, how many of your doctoral theses were based on the ecology of the Great Basin?
If you cut their power, they lose water and heat … then how do they melt ice in sub-freezing weather?
So are there “at least 18 buildings at headquarters, with a number of roads in the vicinity?”
Surely there something organic out there that they could turn into that magic substance called “firewood”.
Bullshit. I’ve seen your lack of honesty in enough threads.
Uh, maybe like this?
So how come your information about the area is so extraordinarily inaccurate?
I spent a couple of summers living in Oregon, and have been through Pendleton and LaGrande and out to Bend. I’ve traveled extensively in the Great Basin in Utah and Nevada. I lived in Boulder, Colorado for seven years while I was a doctoral student at the University of Colorado and after that, where my courses in botany included rangeland ecology. I’ve done environmental surveys in sagebrush country in Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. I know the ecosystem quite well.
Honestly, this has to be one of the stupidest questions in the history of the board. Note there are sizable trees all around the visitor center, and it also looks like there’s plenty of sagebrush. On Google Earth I can see plenty of what looks like fallen timber within a few hundred yards if they don’t want to cut living trees for firewood. I’m sure there are plenty of chain saws and other tools for cutting wood at the Refuge.
If they died of thirst when they were a few feet from a pond and lots of firewood, they would be great candidates for a Darwin Award.
I’m guessing this is the reason. It would be a disaster if a bystander was shot (or killed). What about a taser, though? Could a plains-clothes cop get close enough to incapacitate them? Would that be legal?
I also know the attitude of some western ranchers very well. I’ve been threatened with a shotgun for just approaching a house to ask permission to enter their land, and told I couldn’t survey parcels of BLM land whose only access was by a road that passed through private property because the rancher regarded them as their own.
Did you study the native habitat of the red-necked soveriegn citizen?
ETA: From post #1370, I’m guessing that the answer is yes.
When they get thirsty, they can come out and surrender, and get a nice glass of water. Nobody is proposing to blockade them in until they all die of thirst for God’s sake.
I think it’s quite legal to use a taser to arrest an armed felon who is wanted to face serious charges, and who has publclly stated that they will shoot to kill law enforcement.
This was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, so I don’t think they were calling themselves sovereign citizens yet. But the Posse Comitatus was around.
(Raises hand)
Can we in fact blockade them all in until they surrender or die?
I know this woman with a golden apple…
Another arrest. I think.
At the bottom of the article there’s an update.
This leaves me with lots of questions.
[ul]
[li]Where and when was he arrested?[/li][li]Why him and not others?[/li][li]Why has he been released?[/li][/ul]
Hm. Maybe there is something to this sovereign citizen business. He told them he wasn’t subject to their laws, and they had to let him go.
If someone wrote this stuff in a book or movie everyone would say that it’s too unbelievable.
If this is the same guy, and I’m pretty sure it is, then he’s running for President (as a Republican of course).
I wonder if his compatriots are okay with him making promises on their behalf.
But if so, I have to express some reservation about Christie agreeing to the challenge. There’s a good chance that this fella once used a Groupon deal for a $10 Introduction To Sumo Wrestling class, or something, which would make him that much more prepared than Christie to win the match.
That said, the tradition of trial by combat is very clear on the challenged party having the right to be represented by a champion. So, yeah; let’s go…
