Rancher Cliven Bundy, who was at the center of an armed showdown with the federal government over cattle grazing fees, has just celebrated the one year anniversary of forcing the federal government to retreat.
The date was marked with a victory party called the "Liberty Celebration" and featured a barbecue with beef from Bundy's land, patriotic music, cowboy poetry, off-roading and shooting,
NPR reported.
"We the people stood with them, and Mr. Bundy got his cows back, and he's got his ranch, and BLM's [Bureau of Land Management] gone," Robert Crooks, founder of the Mountain Minutemen, told NPR. "BLM no longer exists in this section of Nevada."
According to NPR, the BLM has stopped managing or patrolling the southeastern corner of the state out of concerns for safety. Nevertheless, the standoff triggered what is known as the "sovereign citizen movement" on western lands. One of its objectives is for states and local sheriffs to assume management of federal public lands.
Nearly a dozen legislatures in western states have considered legislation that seeks to transfer ownership of federal lands to the states, NPR said.
The majority of the state of Nevada is federal land available for public use, but the government's management of it has been controversial amid distrust of Washington, D.C.
"Currently our federal government owns 84 percent of Nevada's land and has been enforcing taxes and fees as they see fit for nearly 150 years," Republican state assemblywoman Michele Fiore told NPR.
Some say the Bundy standoff set up a precedent where locals feel they do not need to follow the law.
"In other words, anybody that doesn't want to follow any federal laws or regulations can do so if they have enough firepower with them," Alan O'Neill, a retired park superintendent who ran Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Bundy's land, told NPR.
"The more time goes by, the more brazen Bundy is," he added.
Bundy continues to have staunch supporters.
"Cliven and his family put their life, their children, their home, everything they had on the line to help stand up for the Constitution of the United States — for our freedoms," Shawna Cox, a Bundy family friend, told NPR.
She added that she and others plan to continue to fight until the state of Nevada was in full control of the land.
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