Arrow To The Heart

Having a gun pointed at you can affect you in several unusual ways. To some, it is terrifying and takes years to overcome; to others it's just alarming. At the age of 18, unfortunately I had such an experience.

While in the southern Nevada desert, a man came up to my pickup truck and put a pistol in my face. He told me to leave the area and said, "I've killed before, and I would do it again." Not knowing what had provoked him, those who were with me and I calmly got into my truck and drove away. We were approximately 30 miles south of Mesquite, Nevada, at the northern tip of Lake Mead on the Bundy Range. After contemplating the event, I concluded that the man had claimed his camp nearby and simply did not want us around.

Although it did not cause me to fear much, it was alarming to experience how willing he was to use a gun to get us to leave. A few days later, I heard how the sheriffs department was searching for a man hiding in the desert and considered him dangerous. Being certain it was the same man who had pointed his gun at me, I gave the information to a deputy. I believe they arrested him, and I never heard any more about him again.

Before this incident, in all the time my family has run cattle in the desert, for five generations, since 1877-140 years-I had never heard of a person on our range using a gun to force or intimidate another. Then the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) came to town in early 2014.

Just like the man in the desert, some BLM law enforcement agents, pointed guns at people's heads and threatened deadly force simply because the BLM personnel did not want US there. Through its Office of Law Enforcement and Security, the BLM functions as a federal law enforcement agency of the U.S. Government. It is hard to describe the overwhelming force used by the BLM upon our community and family. The best way for me to describe it is that it was like a scene out of the Hollywood movie Red Dawn. Helicopters, more than 200 agents, full battle gear, loudspeakers, checkpoints, attack dogs, armed convoys, surveillance aircraft with night vision and infrared capabilities, assault after assault, snipers on the hill, missions, and misinformation campaigns, just to mention a few elements.

In an explanation of a campaign on the Bundy family and community, the BLM states, This is a military-type operation," and that the Intelligence Collection Program command procedures used were "military model." Steve Myhre, U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada, in defense of the BLM admitted in court records that "the BLM was a military-type force of some sort." It was reported that the BLM spent close to $6 million to move in and start this operation.

During the 10 days the teams took setting up their base of operation, a BLM "crisis negotiator" contacted my family by phone and told us, "If you resist in any way, this will be another Waco or Ruby Ridge.. We will kill you."

The operational plans and the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) report show that multiple sniper teams were surveilling my family's home "24 hours a day with 360-degree surveillance" and that "lethal force" may have been "imminent."

You may be asking, "'Why such a show of force? Are the Bundys such terrible people?" As a Bundy myself, I will not try to defend the character of my family and myself. Whether we are just a simple American ranching family or not is for you to answer for yourself, if you so desire.

However, I will say this: the armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary force used by the BLM upon our community and family was not over a $75 Indian bead the size of the end of my pinkie--the bead used by BLM officials to justify sending special agent in charge of the BLM in Nevada and Utah, Dan Love, and over 120 BLM agent operators to raid homes and terrorize families in Blanding, Utah.

Neither was the force upon my family over Indian Wars-period relics. A buckle and buttons were used by the BLM to justify having BLM agents in full tactical gear and with assault rifles bust through doors to raid a local museum in Montana, terrorizing employees and interns who had never heard of the Bureau of Land Management before. Nor was my family stormed by the armed law enforcement division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over legally obtained exotic wood used for making guitar parts.

No, the force upon my family was not over antiques. The millions of dollars spent, hundreds of tactical agents converging, helicopters flying, farm vehicles rolling, and so on were because my father's cattle were eating what the BLM said was their grass, a claim the Bundy family and many others constitutionally dispute.

But still the same, the excessive force upon mynfamily used by the BLM was over cattle eating grass. Of course, I could go into the details and talk about how my family had grazed our cattle on that land since 1877, for 140 years, before Las Vegas had even one tent in it, and seventy years before the Bureau of Land Management existed. I could talk about how our water infrastructure is over anhundred years old and, without it, much of the wildlife would not be able to survive in parts of that desert.

I could point out the constitutional violations of the BLM by controlling over 89 percent of the land in the state of Nevada, and how Nevada's rural economy has been devastated by the BLM land control. I could continue to go on about the many injustices by the BLM and other federal land control agencies, and even show how detrimental these types of actions are to the fundamental liberty of each American, violating our most basic rights-most notably the Fourth Amendment, which ensures "the right of the people to be secure in their reasons, houses, papers, and effects" and protects citizens from "unreasonable searches and seizures."

But, putting all that aside, putting the dispute out of view, what you have left is a military-type force, funded by American taxes, coming down upon American families with such terrifying force that lives were being taken. For what? An Indian bead? Old buttons and buckle? Some wood? Cows eating grass? I know I'm not the only one who finds this ludicrous, and I'm sure that this insult to everything American is one of the reasons Chris has written this book.

One of the ironies of this whole matter is, when Congress established the Bureau of Land Management in 1946, combining the U.S. Land Office with the U.S. Grazing Board, the directive from Congress was to dispose of the land and give it to the people, and encourage ranchers to graze cattle on the land. That is what Congress organized the BLM to do. So why the use of excessive force? Maybe I can best explain it this way through a short, and true, story.

When I was around nine or 10 years old, my family visited Lehman Caves in central Nevada. After going through the magnificent underground chambers, my brothers and I were intrigued by some little birds that had built their nests with mud under the canopy of the visitors' center. I climbed the railing to get a peek into the mud nest, when a park ranger came up and strictly reprimanded me for disturbing the birds. He said, "How would you like it if I came and frightened you in your home?" My intention was not to harm or frighten the birds in their homes. I was just curious. Embarrassed, I quickly jumped down.The park ranger continued to rail on us about our intrusion into the birds' habitat, how the birds had a right to be secure in their homes, how getting too close to them would cause them to feel danger, and how now they might move to another location. In shame, we accepted the reprimand. Then the ranger turned on his heels and, with a straight back and head up, he walked away.

My point in telling you this story is not in the irony of the ranger's question, "How would you like it if I came and frightened you in your home? The point I would like to make is that the park ranger was a stuffy man in a uniform with a goofy hat who knew a lot about birds. He did not wear a gun. He did not have a radio. He was not wearing a protective vest or armor plates or a helmet. He did not wear a star on his chest, and his vehicle did not have red and blue lights on it. He did not threaten to arrest us or use force upon us in any way. In fact, I do not think the use of force was in his nature. He was someone who loved the birds and looked after them. He did his job, stopped our intrusion, educated us with a little shame, and then walked away.

Many years later I became aware that at the time, if this park ranger had wanted to have me arrested, he would have had to call the county sheriff. He held no policing or arresting power. In fact, the park ranger not only had no policing or arresting power, but he would have had no jail to take me to. If In had been put in the county or state system, the judge would have had the case thrown out, because no state or county law had been violated. You see, that stiff park ranger in his goofy hat held very little power, just as the Constitution intended. Unless I had broken a local law, voted upon by the representatives of the local people and enforced by an elected local sheriff, who received policing and arresting powers from the local people, I was protected.

As extreme environmentalist and socialist groups began to take over federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, constitutional checks and balances became very frustrating for them. They connived a way to create color of law without legislation by implanting their policies in the federal registry, making them appeal as laws. But what good was their so-called law if the sheriff would not enforce that law and they had no enforcing powers themselves or jails to punish people with? These extreme environmentalists knew the local people, in general, would never pass their radical policies as local law. So, they began to devise another means to force their ideologies upon the American people. They simply would create their own law enforcement structure.

Like the picture of an ape evolving into a man, peaceful park rangers in goofy hats, over 35 years, have evolved into terrifying soldiers with mntraining to equal their gear. Federal law enforcement training centers were established, where all the training and gear are vailable to any agency that wants a force. Federal jails were built, and administrative judges were hired. Local checks and balances were broken down through federal funding and MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding). Local law enforcement departments were given federal funding to purchase needed equipment if they would accept federal agents, such as park rangers, as authorized law enforcement with policing and arresting powers.

The constitutional protections afforded to people regarding voting and delegating their policing and arresting power were deceptively bypassed. Now, all a federal agent must do to obtain policing and arresting power is go to the federal training center and get certified. The solemn and sacred power to take life, liberty, or property through the law once came from the local people by delegation, through elections and deputizing. This has all been usurped by federal agents through certification.

The once constitutionally frustrated extreme environmental bureaucrats, with no mechanism to enforce their own policies, have, for over 35 years, developed a system to create their own laws, enforce those laws, and interpret those laws with no checks and balances and no local interference. There is no way to hold them accountable. There is no way to indict them. You cannot vote them out, and if the local representatives stand in their way, like San Juan County commissioner Phil Lyman did, they arrest them, prosecute them in their own system, and punish them like all the others. The word to describe this is "despotism."

As appalling as it is for the Bureau of Land Management to justify raiding families in Utah over an Indian bead or museum in Montana over an old buckle and some buttons, or a guitar factory for using some exotic wood, or waging a full military-type campaign in Nevada over cows eating grass, the real reason for the shows of force has nothing to do with beads, buckles, buttons, wood, or grass. You do not have to look far back in time to see how unchecked power attracts those who thrive on force and intimidation. Men like Dan Love and his oncenloyal team of military-like operators thrive on this force.

Men and women excited to use the color of law in taking life, liberty, and property are turning once peaceful little communities into places of terror and mourning. Add to this the ideology of extreme environmentalists who believe it is their divine right to force all people, by any means, to align with theirnfar-flung beliefs. Then add federal agents who believe they are above the law, and lives will continue to be lost over items such as beads, buckles, buttons, wood, and grass.

There is nothing we can do about the past except learn from it. The future is entirely different. We can change what is happening. I suppose we must keep learning the same lessons repeatedly because humans live only so long. Future generations forget what once was common knowledge-knowledge such as ultimate power ultimately corrupts. Men and women in power must have checks and balances, or they will abuse it. The best way to prevent power from being abused is to keep it distributed among all the people and not allow it to be consolidated into one body. There will always be more overzealous federal agents in the world.

So, if we desire to end the destruction of life, liberty, or property over beads, buckles, buttons, wood, or grass, then we must reinstall the strict constitutional checks and balances once held by the local people, their sheriffs, and their representatives. Thank you.

Arrow To The Heart - The Last Battle at the Little Bighorn
By Christopher kortlander
The Custer Battlefield Museum vs The Federal Government

Foreword by Ammon Bundy written while in solitary confinement at the federal detention center in Pahrump, Nevada.

Arrow to the Heart is the fascinating story of how Christopher Kortlander, the owner of the private town of Garryowen, Montana, fought off the federal government and exposed a vast conspiracy of corruption and espionage.

In the spring of 2005 a federally orchestrated raid took place at the small Montana town of Garryowen. Christopher Kortlander, the private owner of Garryowen and the focus of the raid, was suspected of selling valuable historical artifacts with false provenance.

Kortlander vigorously fought this criminal allegation and eventually revealed a vast conspiracy of government corruption and espionage. He also exposed stunning connections between his raid, the Gibson Guitar raid, and a raid in rural Utah that led to the deaths of multiple people.

☆ https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Heart-Battlefield-Federal-Government/dp/1682617092