Well didn't this whole thing started over the right to set federal land on fire? Not the brightest bunch we're dealing with here.
It depends on which thing you're talking about. There's the Hammond's case, which started in 1999 when the feds told the Hammonds to stop setting non-permitted fires on the border of their property along the federal land and not watching the fires because they'd eventually charge them when they got out of control. The Hammonds disagreed and eventually in 2001 got arrested for arson after like the twentieth fire or something they set. They got arrested a second time in 2006 for more of the same and they apparently never stopped setting shitty fires.
They finally went to trial in 2012, were convicted and left prison back in 2013 after three months and a year respectively. Last year they were re-sentenced because prosecutors wanted them sentenced under anti-terrorism laws with a five year mandatory minimum.
And then there's the Bundy's case, as they apparently found their last adventure profitable:
In about October 2015, the Hammond case had attracted the attention of Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne. The pair had been actively looking for a cause to adopt since the conclusion of the Bundy standoff in May 2014. Beginning in early November, Bundy and his associates began publicizing the case via social media. Over the ensuing weeks, Bundy and Payne met for approximately eight hours with Harney County Sheriff David Ward to detail plans for what they described would be a peaceful protest in Burns, as well as also requesting the sheriff's office protect the Hammonds from being taken into custody by federal authorities. Though Ward said he sympathized with the Hammonds' plight, he declined Bundy and Payne's request. Ward said that he subsequently received death threats by email. Unbeknownst to Ward, Bundy and Payne were simultaneously planning a takeover of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Ammon Bundy and his band of militiamen said they destroyed a fence at the site of their anti-government standoff earlier this week to help out a nearby rancher, but that rancher said Wednesday that he did not give them permission and does not support their mission.
Tim Puckett, a rancher whose land runs adjacent to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, told The Oregonian Wednesday he’s never spoken to Bundy, and his ranch hands have already fixed the fence.
“I am very upset,” Puckett told the paper. “They didn’t have my permission to do anything.”
Bundy claimed Monday he had permission from the rancher’s family to destroy the fence, which would allow their cattle to graze on public land, and said he even consulted them on where it should go. Bundy and his supporters are protesting the federal government’s meddling with public grazing lands, which they say should be returned to local residents.
But Puckett said he “didn’t know anything about it” until late Monday night, after the militiamen had already removed 20 to 30 yards of federal fence using the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s own equipment, according to The Oregonian. The fence was built last year using a $100,000 grant.
