Public Land: "In all modern states, some land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land."

"Each western state also received federal "public land" as trust lands designated for specific beneficiaries, which the States are to manage as a condition to acceptance into the union. The trust lands are usually managed extractively (grazing or mining), to provide revenue for public schools. All states have some lands under state management, such as state parks, state wildlife management areas, and state forests."

- These states received FEDERAL 'public land' to use to their benefit. They manage the land and use it to fund 'public' beneficiaries. Mr. Bundy decided that he gets to use land which is owned by everyone, for his own personal gain, without giving back to the people that own the land. He is pocketing the leasing fees, giving him a real pricing advantage over all of his competitors who are operating inside of the law.

Would it be 'patriotic' to defend a mining company who has decided they don't need to pay for mineral rights when using public land? The fees for those mineral rights (and grazing rights) go back into the public, which is who the land belongs to. Mr Bundy has gone to court twice and both times was found to be breaking the law. He is trespassing his herd on land that isn't his.

That's like refusing to pay for an apartment that you're living in (for two decades), and saying you need a gun in case the landlord shows up looking for the rent. 

Thank god for the right to protect yourself (while you're breaking the law).

It should be worth noting that the second part is actually pretty plausable...

Harry Reid more or less has a long history of using legislation to make money.  So if that's the only area he can make money off the plant... that's the only place he likely wants it.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/22/editorial-harry-reids-casino-luck/

I mean.... it's worth noting the times is the Washington left leaning paper.

So, should that family be counted as a well-regulated militia? :)

I am more afraid of the fact that individuals take up arms against the government, than the other way around. We have lots of examples of fascist states, government oppressing the people. But what we often forget, is that alot of these fascist governments comes from that "well-regulated militia" that is supposed to be a protection for the people.

If a culture begins to form, where weapons are seen as unnecessary, I believe both the people and their government will benefit.

^ This.  Although, one could argue that a new virtue of being American is to fuck over anyone and everyone in the country, to achieve any personal gain you can.

The Post is the left leaning paper. Sun Myung Moon started the Times to create the anti-Post.

Oh really?   Huh.

Still Harry Reid is a corrupt dick.

The only reason he's is stil in office is because the republicans ran a woman who freaked out even some republicans.

I don't know the whole story nor do I care to learn it.  I am not for the BLM taking this guys cattle (which was latter returned). However, I am also not for cattle ranchers to run cattle on federal lands especially in desert areas such as Nevada. The government hands out these leasing rates at way bellow market value (grazing on private land costs 3-4 times as much as what they sign to use public land). Running a few cattle on public land doesn't do much damage but when you have a heard in the thousands then they can do some damage (usually happens near a river aka soil erosion caused by fat ass cattle). I believe in keeping the public lands open to the public not for drilling or cattle. Although I do prefer free ranging cattle than those forced to stand knee high in their own shit at a factory farm.

Actually, fascism has been historically voted for (or appointed) when the initial pre-condition is a democratic system. The major facisist systems were achieved by loop-holes in the political system and not some revolution (which I gather most fascists were opposed to, in general.) Fasicsts would rather alter the goals of the system than abolish and replace it. 

As for the culture of weapons being uncessary, yes if we ignore reason and reality such a culture might arise. Unfortunately the world is not a place without agressive persons, and weapons are required to protect against these aggressive persons. That is the harsh fact. If the governments of Europe who ban weapons were to collapse (and all governments collapse eventually) then weapons would be absolutely necessary for the protection of one's rights. They are even more necessary when one understands that government possess such weapons, and government is often not genial (evidenced by the hundreds of millions who died in the 20th century at the hands of governments.) 

It's not only an increasingly overbearing government, but the fact that there is also increasing sectionalism (though in a mass media and communications world, it's less geographical and more cultural) to the point that our entire politics is based around trying to win control of said overbearing government just to spite the other side and force them to eat as much shit as they can over the next four years. At some point after the Civil War, the Tenth Amendment and the idea of states rights became demonized as a stalking horse for racists and neo-Confederacy, which is sad because it's the solution to so many of our problems. Not that I'm sure these people would go for it, anyway, because they are obsessed with spiting each other too much to want to get out of each other's hair and just live their lives. They want to slash the hated Other's throat, and drink his blood, and howl in victory... politically speaking, of course (for now).

Of course in a full fledged rebellion there would be no shortage of weapons. In a country that is swimming in guns like this one, even a full on repeal of the Second Amendment would never dry up the supply completely. But most decent people - which is to say most people - want to obey the law. The point of gun control is to make it such a hassle that those people won't even bother with them at all. A little "common sense" gun control here, an arbitrarily banned scary-looking type of gun there... oops, another shooting. That didn't work, so we'd better ban more stuff... It's not a serious attempt to stop mass shootings. No sane person can think such haphazard legislation is going to do that. It's an attempt to kill the Second Amendment by 1,000 cuts because they don't dare to take it on head on.

And the problem is that there's no telling just if or how or when things might progress from our cold Civil War to a low-grade not-so-cold one. I wouldn't necessarily expect it, and I certainly don't assume it's going to happen, but it's always a possibility and such things usually happen sooner than people think is even possible. It's completely unthinkable right up until it happens. As Ukraine is learning the hard way, no good comes from being disarmed. That goes double for being disarmed by people who hate you. It only invites aggression.