Young letter: BLM

Robert Miller’s guest opinion Feb. 25 lost credibility by the fifth paragraph when he wrote about BLM, “The agency founded by Congress under the Taylor Grazing Act is administered under the U.S. Department of the Interior, along with the U.S. Forest Service.” Not. USFS is in the Department of Agriculture. An unbiased journalist should know better.

Miller also rails about BLM’s “armed rangers” as if they’re the egg that hatched the chickens of the sagebrush rebellion’s armed militias. Armed LEOs in federal land management agencies were (are) a response to the number of wackos running around on public lands carrying firearms and treating the lands as their private playgrounds. As a Forest Service firefighter in the days before “armed rangers” were a thing, my crew and I faced gunshots into our station compound, booby traps on public backcountry trails (to protect marijuana plantations) and arson fires that twice destroyed my fire station, not to mention regular intimidation from the locals.

Finally, the “out-of-control thugs” who need to be disarmed are the paranoid militias who take over public lands by force and threat of violence.

This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 11:16 PM with the headline "Young letter: BLM."