Time to call in a drone strike.
Its a legacy of the old west, when the local cattle baron or mine owner
owned the town, the only source of employment, the saloon, the whorehouse, the general store, the sheriff and the judge. Its what's called "local control". They didn't want any outsiders coming in to challenge that authority, like the US Marshall from Dodge City, riding in...
Basically, these guys want to use (or abuse) a public resource, range land, for private profit. They figure they have a right to do that because they live there and they have guns, and have wrapped themselves up in the flag and Christian, patriotic fervor.
And I guess it goes back a lot further than the Old West. I call it the Runnymede Syndrome, after the bog where the Magna Carta was signed, giving the local baronic thugs a veto over King John's ultimate power. There's a lot of noble talk about local control, and outside tyranny, but what its really all about is that the local gangsters don't like no outsiders coming in and cutting into their profits, or stopping them from intimidating the local sodbusters. Everyone knows how the barons fought so bravely for the peasant's freedoms.
They got away with this once, at the Cliven Bundy spread in Nevada, and his son is involved in this move, too. If they get away with it again, you're going to start seeing other sovereign citizens, militias, posses comitatii, and other gangs of gunslinging irregulars trying it, first in remote parts of the country, later, closer to the big cities. A few years back one of these groups (also in Oregon, if I'm not mistaken) had to be cleared out by the Feds, they had started extorting "taxes" from local residents to finance their activities. Its just a protection racket with ten gallon hats.
Bad King John by Eleanor Farjeon
John, John, bad King John
Shamed the throne that he sat on;
Not a scruple, not a straw,
Cared this monarch for the law;
Promises he daily broke;
None could trust a word he spoke;
So the Barons brought a Deed;
Down to rushy Runnymede,
Magna Carta was it hight,
Charter of the People’s Right,
Framed and fashioned to correct
Kings who act with disrespect –
And with stern and solemn air,
Pointing to the parchment there,
“Sign! Sign! Sign!” they said
“Sign, King John, or resign instead!”
John, John, turning pale,
Ground his teeth and bit his nail;
Chewed his long moustache; and then
Ground and bit and chewed again.
“Plague upon the People!” he
Muttered, “What are they to me?
Plague upon the Barons, too!”
(Here he had another chew,)
But the Barons, standing by,
Eyed him with a baleful eye;
Not a finger did they lift;
Not an eyelash did they shift;
But with one tremendous roar,
Even louder than before,
“Sign! Sign! Sign!” they said,
“SIGN, KING JOHN, OR RESIGN INSTEAD!”