How do you get to this point?
Less than a second after this image was taken, the man in the hat will be fatally shot.
He is 54 years old, married and father of 11 children. And he will be shot down as he stands in the snow, reaching for a 9mm handgun as four law enforcement officers are aiming weapons at him.
What is this man thinking?
I've heard more than a few people react to this as "Good!" or "he got what he deserved," but really - this is a genuine tragedy.
Eleven people call this man 'dad,' yet he chose to illegally occupy federal buildings with a gun. Chose to declare to the national media that "these buildings will never, ever return to the federal government."
When pulled over by authorities, this man - with other people in the car - chose to flee. Risking his own life and the lives of his passenger & those of the officers who had to give chase.
With officers in hot pursuit and a roadblock ahead of his vehicle, this man chose not to slow down, but attempted to drive around it - burying the front of his truck in the snow & missing an officer by a few feet. Again, this man and his passenger could have been injured or killed in the crash. Had the officer in question taken a few more steps before the crash, they might have been seriously injured or killed.
The police could have (justifiably) fired into the truck as it narrowly missed one of their officers. This man or his passenger could have died as a result.
And finally, this man chose to exit their truck & raise their arms, the first sane thing they do in this entire sad affair. They are confronted by five officers in front and one behind. After noticing the officer behind them, the man lowers his hands and puts one into his coat four seconds later.
So the police kill him.
I have a lot of sympathy for this man's family. To watch a family member do what this man did must baffle them. Even steeped in a family mindset, surely they are wondering why didn't he keep his hands up?
And the capstone to this entire thing is that this man died for a cause that was lost before he was even born.
There is no chance that all federal lands in the west are going to become private lands, or even state lands in this century.
This man threw his life away for complete bullsh!t. Bullsh!t he apparently believed above everything else - above even love for his children. That is just sad beyond measure.
Think of how deluded a person would have to be to think that seizing a federal bird sanctuary would cause the federal government to give up federal lands. This is something that can only be done by Congress - a body that has never even brought such a bill to the floor in decades. The same body that can barely muster the energy to raise the debt ceiling - this is the group that is suddenly going to spring into action to appease a small group of malcontents camped out in the middle of frozen nowhere.
Had this man bothered to check the political winds even a little bit - he would have learned that the rest of the nation has no idea that the feds own so much land. The rest of the nation could give a sh!t about federal land ownership and less than a half of a sh!t about people who do.
What's that you say, grandpaw? You're mad at the gubment? Well, get in line.
And I get that western residents have locked horns with the feds over land for ages. Some of their grievances I might have patience to listen to. But the reality is that the federal lands belong to everyone.
And everyone outnumbers the hell out of the few folks out west who want to graze for free. That's democracy - majority rule, with rights for all. And there is no right in the Constitution that says you can use or take federal land just because you're unhappy. Unless you can win over enough people to sway Congress - you're pretty much outta luck.
And guys like this unfortunate father of eleven, were fed up with being out of luck. They will not be ignored....!
But they are, nobody cares about them - or even thinks about them.
Oh, but they will.... Frustrated and unknown, these folks are gonna get heard. So they grab a gun, all the stuff they own that looks mil-spec and dress up like soldiers of the government they claim to hate.
Because it makes them feel powerful. And they get attention. And their ranks begin to swell.
The gun makes people have to pay attention. Not because they care about the message, but because they are afraid you are going to hurt someone. This laughable nonsense that the guns are there for "defense" is even dumber than the idea that Congress is going to do what they ask.
The militia have guns for defense - in case the cops attack them.
Psst! You in the cowboy hat! I'll let you in on a secret. GUNS ATTRACT COPS.
It's a fact. You go to a public place as an armed group and cops will come to you. Guns are cop catnip, and everybody knows it except these militia idiots. Take the "defense" argument another few steps down the road and you're at the next secret these idiots don't appear to realize: GUNS HAVE NEVER MADE THE COPS GO AWAY.
If you have the weapons, they come to you - but if you SHOOT any of the weapons near the police, you will have attracted the attention of ALL OF THE POLICE. For how long? UNTIL THEY GET YOU.
So, your "defense" argument is stupid from any angle, cowboy-man.
Guns work wonders at getting media attention, though - and if you were smart - you'd find a way to attract the media without the cops.
Militias, being idiots, get both.
Still, when cameras are finally aimed at them - they come to a terrible realization:
They are in no way prepared to make a national statement.
If the Bundys had a brain in their head, they would have vetted a group of committed westerners and presented themselves to the nation in a non-threatening, but extremely public way.
The key to protesting is to make the public identify with you - so they sympathize with you.
Bundy and Co announced their collective Other-hood in 60pt bold. Chest thumping stupidity became their brand. Their ranks were stocked with a mix of those who were committed to the cause and those who needed to be committed to a padded room. Tarps, Fluffy Bunny, sumo guy for God's sake.
With every week, the militia added another star to the "We are Freaks" flag flying over Malheur.
I have wondered if the totality of their failure became evident to them before the shooting of this sad man. Such a realization might drive a slighted white man to do something rash.
But I still cannot help but wonder what it was in the mind of LaVoy Finicum that kept him going - even in the face of overwhelming evidence that his personal cause was lost. Did he really think he could shoot his way out? Did he think his death would change anything?
(LaVoy's ghost - if you're reading this, the answer to that last one is NO.)
And what, in the name of anything held holy would compel a man to desert his children like that?
Don't you even say "Patriotism." That is utter bullsh!t, too. If you love your country, live to make it better, don't die to make yourself feel important.
Father of eleven, dead in a snowbank. A month from now, the nation will have forgotten his name and his cause.
Decades from now his family will still be missing him.
Sad.
