When one talks about the Bundy Family, the first thing that springs to mind is the standoff in Nevada in 2014. However, perhaps even more important is the standoff and occupation at Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. Indeed, the two events are often conflated because Ammon Bundy is the son of Cliven Bundy, the man who stood up to the federal government over "grazing fees" on Bureau of Land Management land.

The occupation was a highlight for both the militia and the sovereign citizen movement as well as proponents of states' rights. The main argument from those occupying the land is that the federal government is mandated by law to turn over the land that they manage to the individual states in which the land sits. This, they argued, was particularly true of the Bureau of Land Management, United States Forestry Service, and United States Fish and Wildlife Service land.

The 2016 Oregon standoff was over two ranchers convicted of arson on federal lands – despite the fact that the men, a father and son pair named Dwight and Steven Dwight Hammond, did not want their support.

Harney County in rural eastern Oregon is one of the largest counties in the United States by land mass, but one of the smallest when it comes to population. With a mere 7,700 people, cows outnumber humans in Harney by a factor of 14-to-1. Nearly three quarters of the land in the county is federally managed. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established by then-President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908. It's a large area of the county and surrounding area at 187,757 acres.

The Oregon Standoff: Understanding LaVoy Finicum's Death & the Management of BLM Land originally appeared in The Resistance Library at Ammo.com.