Look, I don't agree at all with what these guys are doing AT ALL, but I'd hardly characterize them (at this point in their protest) as "terrorists." Good grief!
They haven't hurt anyone, taken any hostages, or blown anything up. They haven't burned any businesses or homes, cut any fire hoses, shot any weapons, or thrown any rocks or molotov cocktails-- unlike our REAL domestic urban rioters who I WOULD call domestic terrorists.
I am intensely curious WHY this "protest" is not viewed as a "peaceful protest", like other urban social activist groups? Because it's in a rural area??
Is it because they are white, and have guns, and are open about what they are doing? Why doesn't the mayor "give them room to destroy" or something like that? Just because they have their lawfully owned guns at their little protest party? These guys are NO DIFFERENT than urban activist "protesters", or the "Occupy Wall Street/ San Francisco/ San Diego, etc" crowds of misguided misfits. They are no different than the Minneapolis group of disgruntled "protesters" that camped out at the 4th police precinct for 4 weeks or so. No different from the Alcatraz occupiers.
All these protesters have some issue/s they are perpetually aggrieved over, and want to make a point and have lots of publicity. But nothing is ever solved with this kind of behavior, whether in an urban or rural environment. But it makes people feel good, and important, to act out, so they do.
Nobody wants to see this end in a blaze of gunfire, but for the life of me, I can't understand the drum beating and saber rattling by the authorities. Ignore them, or negotiate, but don't bring in any armed law enforcement. Treat them like every other urban protester. I really don't think these men will shoot anyone. They just want to have their tantrum and their protest. Leave them be and stop the coverage-- they will eventually get tired of the whole thing in a few months or a year.
Geez-- what we put up with from urban rioters/ protesters/ occupiers-- tents, people using sidewalks as bathrooms, graffiti and property damage, fires, for weeks to months on end, freeways blockaded, airports shut down, train lines shut down, etc. No one runs in with guns blazing when those kind of protests are going on. We have to "tolerate" their "frustration" with whatever they say they are "frustrated" about. And find them a "safe space."
These guys are far away from any populations-- there is just no need to whip this up into a blaze of gunfire. Cooler heads should prevail!
Let them have their peaceful little protest party, and carry their guns around. Keep an eye on them, but media and government authorities should pretty much ignore them UNLESS they start destroying stuff or firing weapons (which they won't, IMO). Government authorities should not be GOADED or PROVOKED by these guys. IMO!
(And by the way, the scope in the fire tower looks to me like a high power spotting scope--NOT the scope on a rifle.)
