Bundy: federal government has no rights to lands
Bundy and some of his fellow ranchers say that the federal government has no rights to the 87% of the land it owns in that state. Bundy and his associates say that Nevada’s state rights invalidate federal rights. An area resident says that federal laws and court decisions mean nothing, and calls their resistance “a revolutionary war.” Bundy says:
I’m still saying the state of Nevada owns that land, and the federal government has been an encroacher. I’m not moving my cattle. We have … rights.
He says his personal rights to the land trump federal law, and that his rights derive from his contention that his Mormon ancestors were using the land well before the federal government claimed authority over it.