Cliven Bundy is the father of now-arrested Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who were part of the Oregon "militia" that took over a federal wildlife refuge for 25 days — said his son's arrest and the killing of another group member "will be a wake-up call to America."

"This is a total disaster to be happening in America," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"We have, I'm guessing, federal people killing innocent people.

I'll tell you one thing, my sons and those who were there were there to do good, no harm was intended, they would never threaten anybody, they was trying to teach people about the Constitution and trying to help the Hammond family, trying to make sure this type of abuse didn't happen in America and yet, it did."

Ammon, the leader of the self-styled militia occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon, was arrested after the FBI conducted a traffic stop.

His brother Ryan and five others were in the vehicle at the time of the stop.

Shots were fired during the arrest.

One man, Robert "LaVoy" Finicum, was killed, according to a militia spokesman.

Officials have not yet publicly confirm Finicum's death.

Ryan suffered a minor gunshot wound during the traffic stop as well, according to The Oregonian.

The brothers and four other associates were arrested on scene while another man, Peter Santilli, an independent broadcaster who live-streamed the occupation, was also arrested later.

The Bundy standoff was an armed confrontation between protesters and law enforcement that developed from a 20-year legal dispute between the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, over unpaid grazing fees on federally owned land in southeastern Nevada.

The ongoing dispute started in 1993, when, in protest against changes to grazing rules, Bundy declined to renew his permit for cattle grazing on BLM-administered lands near Bunkerville, Nevada.

According to the BLM, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on public lands without a permit.

In 1998, Bundy was prohibited by the United States District Court for the District of Nevada from grazing his cattle on an area of land later called the Bunkerville Allotment.

In July 2013, the BLM complaint was supplemented when federal judge Lloyd D. George ordered that Bundy refrain from trespassing on federally administered land in the Gold Buttearea of Clark County.

On March 27, 2014, 145,604 acres of federal land in Clark County were temporarily closed for the "capture, impound, and removal of trespass cattle".

BLM officials and law enforcement rangers began a roundup of such livestock on April 5, and an arrest was made the next day.

On April 12, a group of protesters, some of them armed, advanced on what the BLM described as a "cattle gather."

Sheriff Doug Gillespie negotiated with Bundy and newly confirmed BLM director Neil Kornze, who elected to release the cattle and de-escalate the situation.

As of the end of 2015, Bundy continued to graze his cattle on Federal land and had not paid the fees.

Bundy was at first praised by Republican politicians and conservative personalities.

Later, after suggesting that "the Negro" would be better off as slaves than under government subsidies, Bundy was widely condemned, and was repudiated by conservative politicians and talk-show hosts who had previously supported him, many of whom condemned his remarks as racist.

The land to which Cliven Bundy claims ancestral rights was originally inhabited by the Moapa Paiute people.

[2] In 1848, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States purchased from Mexico land that is now the southwestern region of the United States.

Since then, the government has continuously owned land in what is now Nevada, including the Bunkerville Allotment.

[3] [4] The Nevada Territory, which was partitioned in 1861 from the Utah Territory, became a state in 1864.

The original settlers in the 1840s and 1850s were Mormons from Utah and southern small-time farmers and ranchers from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

After the end of the American Civil War, much of the land was settled by rural farmers, squatters and small-time cattle ranchers from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Kansas, escaping from the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the associated violence and displacement.

[citation needed] Since 1934 federal rangelands in Nevada have been managed principally by either theBureau of Land Management or its predecessor, the United States Grazing Service, or the United States Forest Service.

As of 2010, 47.8 million acres [5] (more than two-thirds of Nevada's 70.3 million acres) were managed by the BLM.

Throughout the nation, the BLM manages nearly 18,000 grazing permits and leases, [6] of which about 700 are in Nevada.

[7] The season of use and the details of forage are stipulated in permits and leases; thus federal control can be exerted on the land used for grazing.

[6]

Under Bureau of Land Management permits first issued in 1954, Bundy grazed his cattle legally and paid his grazing fees on the Bunkerville Allotment until 1993.

In that year, as a protest, Bundy did not pay to renew his permit, and it was canceled in 1994.

Though the agency made several attempts to have Bundy renew the permit, the rancher declared that he no longer recognized the BLM's authority to regulate his grazing and he asserted that he had "vested rights" to graze cattle on the land.

Federal courts have consistently ruled against Bundy, finding that he is a trespasser with no right to graze on federal land and authorizing the BLM to remove his cattle and levy damages for unauthorized use.

Bundy has since accumulated more than $1 million of unpaid grazing fees and court-ordered fines.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper reported in May 2014 that the amount that Bundy owed stood in "stark contrast" to the situation in Oregon, where just 45 of the state's roughly 1,100 grazing permit holders collectively owed $18,759 in past-due payments to the BLM.

[13] Excluding Bundy's unpaid fees, the total of all late grazing fees owed nationwide to the BLM was only $237,000, the newspaper said.

Bundy has said he does not recognize federal police power over land that he believes belongs to the "sovereign state of Nevada".

[15] [16] Bundy also denied the jurisdiction of the federal court system over Nevada land and filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the Bureau of Land Management case against him by claiming the federal courts have no jurisdiction because he is a "citizen of Nevada, not the territory of Nevada".

[16] Bundy also believes that federally owned land in Nevada actually belongs to the state.

[17] [18] According to The Guardian, Bundy told his supporters that "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," and in interviews he used the language of the sovereign citizen movement, thereby gaining the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia and the Praetorian Guard militias.

[19] The movement is considered by the FBI as the nation’s top domestic terrorism threat.

[20] [21]

J. J. MacNab, who writes for Forbes about anti-government extremism, described Bundy’s views as inspired by the sovereign citizen movement, whose adherents believe that the county sheriff is the most powerful law-enforcement officer in the country, with authority superior to that of any federal agent, local law-enforcement agency or any other elected official.

[22] On April 12, 2014, Bundy "ordered" Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie to confront the federal agents, disarm them and deliver their arms to Bundy within an hour of his demand, and later expressed disappointment that Gillespie did not comply.

[22] [23] [24]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Bundy's views as closely aligned with those of the Posse Comitatus organization, and it has also asserted that such self-described "patriot" groups were focused on secession, nullification, state sovereignty and the principles of the Tenther movement.

[25] [26]

In May 2014, Bundy changed his political affiliation from the Republican party to the Independent American Party.

[27]