Some of the antigovernment sentiment has been channeled into nonviolent action. Richard Mack was voted out of his job as sheriff in Graham County, Ariz., and filed a lawsuit arguing that the feds didn't have the right to tell county sheriffs how to enforce the Brady gun-control law. His suit is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. In Catron County, N.M., elected officials have won several court cases against federal environmental regulations, most recently in March when a U.S. district judge ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service had to submit its own environmental impact statement on the effects of protecting the Mexican spotted owl habitat in the county. They've broken their promises for over a hundred years.
Dislocation breeds discontent.
Here again, the roots of the anger seem to be as much economic as ideological. Timber sales are just 10 percent of their levels in the early 1990s, partly because of wildfires and a shakeout among timber companies, but also because of federal environmental rules. The government controls 70 percent of the county's 6,900 square miles and restricts its use. Earlier this year, Kit Laney, who manages and owns the Diamond Bar Ranch in the Gila National Forest, was ordered by a federal judge to remove his cattle from the area because the judge ruled that their grazing was damaging the surrounding public land. Maybe we'll walk away with our furniture and a milk cow or two.