Don Shift Sends: The BLM Massacre – How the 2014 Bundy Ranch Standoff Could Have Ignited a Civil War

If you don’t know, in 2014 an insurrection on the level of the Whiskey Rebellion might have developed if not for everything going right one tense afternoon. Most accounts will make it seem like the worst that could have happened was something like abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 Harper’s Ferry raid (in which he was badly routed). Had there been any sort of gunfire the afternoon of April 12 widespread violence across Southern Nevada would have been likely and possibly across the country.

I’m in a social group that brings me into contact with a lot of people across the west. I’m also active (or was) in certain political circles that allowed me to meet liberty-minded folks. It’s through these two groups where I met people who were active participants at the Bundy Ranch standoff in 2014 and others from the immediate area (mainly S. Utah and Nevada).

Cliven Bundy is a rancher who grazes his cows outside Mesquite, Nevada, on BLM land. He has been doing this under permits for decades under permits and eventually without permission after tortoise conservation ended livestock grazing. Bundy lost in court after years of fighting and eventually the BLM decided to round up his cattle to end the illegal grazing. Cattle isn’t what we need to focus on.

In fiction there is a plot device called a McGuffin; it’s something introduced to give the story momentum but that never features centrally in the story. The cattle and Mr. Bundy were the McGuffin here to the supporters at large. Though it seems like everyone was showing up for this one man’s cattle, that why they were there. Probably very few of the people involved were ready to start an insurrection over some elderly rancher’s cattle.

Remember this was 2014: the Tea Party movement had just happened. We’d suffered under six years of a hostile Obama Administration and a resurgence of anti-government feeling had been renewed. Remember all those memes of Obama like “Greatest Firearm Salesman?” A lot of people had the feeling that the country was on a path to tyranny. The Obama Administration and the feelings of those days feels like nothing and seems quaint in late 2022.

So what we had was the next potential Ruby Ridge/Waco in the making and a very large, angry contingent of liberty-minded Americans. The reaction we saw in the Nevada desert was a manifestation of the angst of those times. Many of the patriot and militia types saw this as the potential inciting event of a revolution or civil war. The standoff was going to be either a fuse or relief valve for all the anti-government feeling on the Right at the time.

Major events are often about something deeper and larger than what they appear to be on the surface. 2020’s George Floyd riots weren’t about that criminal, police brutality, or racism; rather it was fueled by a bunch of scared people who had been cooped up and gaslighted too long by the COVID lockdown BS. Media gaslighting everyone for years into a racism/police brutality paradigm since at least the 2014 Ferguson riots didn’t help either.

The reason the militia and patriot types were out there was, even if they couldn’t consciously admit it, was the apprehension of the government. Blame the Patriot Act, the breakdown of trust after 9/11, endless war in the Middle East, Obama’s partisan games, the rise of the slimebag progressive Democratic Party—whatever you want to call it the stuff that makes people fly a Gadsden Flag (“don’t tread on me”) was the fuel feeding this fire. Bundy was the spark and the growing wariness of the federal government was the tinder. This event was the rally for the militant right at the time, much like Trump protests were the McGuffin for America’s on-going communist revolution.

So, we have a confrontation with the federal government, masses of angry liberty/militia types meeting up, and years of apprehension towards Uncle Sam. Now it looks like “the feds” are about to make a major misstep. The Second Amendment was surging again with the developing open carry movement (Texas’ open carry movement was a big deal at the time). Classic American freedom, the gun toting anti-authoritarian kind, was resurgent again as Gen Y and Boomers were getting red-pilled.

The incident culminated in the famous standoff on the afternoon of Saturday, April 12, 2014. I-15 was shutdown just outside the small city of Mesquite on the border of Arizona and Utah. Citizens, militiamen, and federal agents pointed guns at each other. As governor-elect of Nevada, then assistant sheriff Joe Lombardo said: “We were outgunned, outmanned, and there would not have been a good result from it.”

Amazingly, no shots were fired despite the very tense, armed standoff. The two groups looked at each other over actual and proverbial rifle sights. LVMPD (the Clark County, NV, sheriff) defused the situation and BLM decided to release the cattle and suspend the operation. The freeway opened and the parties dispersed. That’s not to say that the feds didn’t round people up afterwards, but no violence occurred when most observers were ready for a bloodbath.

It would have been a bloodbath. Patriots held the high ground (the overpass) and were about as well armed as the feds, whom they outnumbered. While more federal assets were staged nearby, they wouldn’t have prevented the initial bloodbath. Many feds and citizens would have died in a short, violent gun battle. How exactly that would go down is unknown but the feds were outnumbered.

The response and news coverage would have been like 9/11. Horrifying live footage would have come out that the media would have replayed over and over. Obama would have come on TV to condemn the incident and probably everybody to the right of Karl Marx would have been demonized. If you think January 6, 2021, was a greenlight for the media to libel conservatives, this would have made last year’s party at the Capitol look like nothing.

A state of emergency or martial law would probably have been declared. FBI HRT and other SWAT teams would have been scouring the area to hunt down and kill/arrest any participants. A lot of the patriots wouldn’t go peacefully. The killing/fighting would have gone on, draining cops from the surrounding three states. The National Guard would have to be called out.

The violence would not have ended there. Over the years, I have spoken with several people who live or were in the area that told me they would have armed up and gone to fight had violence occurred. These people knew others like them, so I’m fairly confident there is a sizeable iceberg beneath them to where any federal or local cops on the incident would have been attacked, whether they were hunting participants or just on the perimeter.

I kid you not, there were people in the area prepared to fight and die over the situation simply because they would have considered violence to be the balloon going up. Lord knows how many others or groups there were outside the area ready to respond. I’ve heard bits and pieces that suggest a real guerilla war was not outside the realm of possibility.

Beyond that, others have said that they would have hunted local cops in order to tie down law enforcement resources in Vegas. If a couple cops get ambushed in the city and others are taking potshots, force protection becomes paramount to sending bodies to what was the federal government’s problem. The danger with killing random cops (besides the moral implications) is that it could go viral.

In 2020 we saw George Floyd protests start because people were agitated and needed something to do. They also felt angry and trepidatious after the “coronavirus” lockdowns and job losses, but it wasn’t cool to protest the COVID tyranny. So this undercurrent of social angst led to protests around the country (even around the world) including by affluent white college kids who had no tie to any of the issues they claimed to be demonstrating against. When the riots started, cities across the country saw sympathetic rioting in huge numbers.

You tell me that a new Ruby Ridge type situation wouldn’t have spiraled out of control (and show your work). Again, I have it on good authority that many people were prepared to spread the violence in Southern Nevada. In 1775, patriots from the surrounding area flocked to Concord and ambushed and sniped disarrayed British troops.

An event like this would have been seen as the signal for militia groups and lone-wolves to rise up and attack the federal government. Maybe not in numbers large enough to do any serious damage themselves, but enough to cause national problems that would have huge secondary and tertiary effects. One of those effects (of killing cops) would be de-policing and the breakdown of law enforcement. If you want to see how cops react when they are being actively hunted, check out my post on the Christopher Dorner manhunt in 2013; one dude had a third of the most populous states’ cops in disarray.

My Christopher Dorner Experience and What Police May Do During an Insurrection

Where something like that stops no one knows. If the numbers were small, it may have been a bloody few days while the cops and feds got a real, honest to god insurrection under control. Tyranny would probably have ratcheted up to 11 after that just to make sure those pesky deplorables didn’t get any ideas.

On the other end, the killing goes viral. Anti-government attacks start all over the country. Cops are killed simply because they are supposed oppressors. Gangs get in on the act too. Maybe infrastructure is targeted for destruction. A real civil war could start. Many actual, very terrible wars in recent history have started the same way.

Today, we are more factionalized, polarized, and divided than ever. Militarization on both sides of the political divide is common. The federal government has actively demonized conservatives and is literally persecuting them while leftist terrorists go free. At least a quarter to a third of the country feels that political violence is “sometimes” justified (depending on the polls). Should another situation like the above develop, today’s environment is ripe for a conflagration of historic proportions.

Anyhow, if you appreciate my writing, please consider supporting me by buying one of my books, including guides on how best to prepare your home and neighborhood during domestic unrest. Visit my website at www.donshift.com