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Long Shadow - The Bundys: A Call to Arms

When the government seizes Cliven Bundy’s cattle over unpaid grazing fees, militias like the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers—which are later at 1/6—aid a standoff on his ranch.<br /><hr /><p style="color: grey; font-size: 0.75em;"> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

The Bundys: A Call to Arms

This episode contains audio and descriptions depicting violence, as well as some harsh language.

Back in the 1800s, as the country expanded west, land was cheap.

The federal government gave away hundreds of millions of acres of western land to anyone

who wanted to homestead. But after over a century of giving the land away,

there were still stretches of it out here that no one wanted to live on.

Huge swaths of desert, sage-dotted badlands where farming was impossible.

In 1976, a government agency called the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM,

took over most of this unwanted land and held it in the public trust.

They would lease the land out for a fee, mostly to cattle ranchers and minors.

And in Nevada, where more than half of state territory is managed by the BLM,

a war over this land that no one wanted has raged ever since.

In the American West, it's in a hall-out brawl called the Sagebrush Rebellion,

and the battle is threatening to turn very ugly.

When the BLM took control of these lands in 1976, a collection of ranchers

minors and loggers, along with state and local officials, began to object to the new rules

the federal government laid out about how that land should be used.

And as those objections got louder and angrier, they became a movement that would be known

In the land of wide open spaces, there's a new land war.

The federal government owns almost half the property in the West,

The April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School hurtled the United States into an era of mass shootings. Now, a quarter century later, the horrors of that day have become an almost regular facet of American life, and gun violence a record-smashing epidemic. Clad in both camouflage and Kevlar, 21st-century America is a bastion of freedom where workplaces require active shooter protocols, schools run lockdown drills, and the Second Amendment has become a religion unto itself.Guns are a uniquely American problem, but the U.S. wasn’t always like this. LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST explores the story of the people — some names you'll know, some you won't — who changed the way America relates to guns, for better or worse. This season, host Garrett Graff, in collaboration with The Trace, chronicles how firearms moved from being an ordinary part of the background of rural life to a menacing element of modern American life.Crackling with rich archival tape and riveting eyewitness and expert interviews, this narrative podcast examines threads of history that are vitally relevant to our current political climate. In LONG SHADOW’s first season, Graff, a Pulitzer-finalist and a best-selling author and historian, examined the lingering questions of 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Season two chronicled how bloody tragedies at the hands of federal agents led to the rise of American far-right extremism and ultimately the January 6 insurrection. Season three will help listeners understand how simply carrying firearms has become its own act of defiance, and how a very specific, carefully manufactured fear has driven explosive demand for guns across America. How did we get here? Subscribe and listen to LONG SHADOW to find out.LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST is produced by <a href="https://www.longlead.com">Long Lead</a> and <a href="https://www.campsidemedia.com">Campside Media</a> in collaboration with <a href="https://www.thetrace.org">The Trace</a>, and is distributed by <a href="https://www.prx.org">PRX</a>.

0:00.0	This episode contains audio and descriptions depicting violence, as well as some harsh language.
0:06.0	Please take care when listening.
0:13.3	In the American West, land is life.
0:18.0	Back in the 1800s, as the country expanded west, land was cheap.
0:23.4	The federal government gave away hundreds of millions of acres of western land to anyone
0:28.2	who wanted to homestead. But after over a century of giving the land away,
0:33.4	there were still stretches of it out here that no one wanted to live on.
0:38.1	Huge swaths of desert, sage-dotted badlands where farming was impossible.
0:45.7	In 1976, a government agency called the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM,
0:51.6	took over most of this unwanted land and held it in the public trust.
0:56.5	They would lease the land out for a fee, mostly to cattle ranchers and minors.
1:01.9	And in Nevada, where more than half of state territory is managed by the BLM,
1:06.8	a war over this land that no one wanted has raged ever since.
1:12.6	In the American West, it's in a hall-out brawl called the Sagebrush Rebellion,
1:17.0	and the battle is threatening to turn very ugly.
1:20.0	When the BLM took control of these lands in 1976, a collection of ranchers
1:25.6	minors and loggers, along with state and local officials, began to object to the new rules
1:31.2	the federal government laid out about how that land should be used.
1:34.8	And as those objections got louder and angrier, they became a movement that would be known
1:39.6	as the Sagebrush Rebellion.
1:41.7	In the land of wide open spaces, there's a new land war.
1:46.0	The federal government owns almost half the property in the West,
	...

The Bundys: A Call to Arms

Long Shadow

Long Lead & PRX & The Trace & Campside Media

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