3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2018
Harney County searches for new
normal as Hammonds come home
Deal reached to clean
land around reactors
Some believe
occupation was
not helpful
SPOKANE, Wash. — A
portion of the vast Washing-
ton state site where the U.S.
government created much
of the plutonium for the
nation’s nuclear arsenal will
be scrubbed free of radiation
and other pollution under a
final plan reached by the U.S.
Department of Energy and
federal and state regulators.
By CONRAD WILSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
In late November 2015,
a man wearing a cowboy hat
and clutching a pocket-sized
Constitution stood before TV
cameras to ask the world to aid
two Harney County ranchers.
“The Hammonds need your
help,” Ammon Bundy said.
Dwight and Steven Ham-
mond were slated to return
to prison on charges of arson
on federal land after a judge
threw out their initial sen-
tences as too lenient. Bundy
and his followers wanted them
to refuse to turn themselves in
— and ended up seizing con-
trol of the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge in a 41-day
takeover that drew national
and international attention.
After the Hammonds
turned themselves in, the tone
of the occupation shifted away
from the family and toward
complaints about federal gov-
ernment overreach. The Ham-
monds did get a presidential
pardon, but that was just this
month, and many in Harney
County wonder if the occupa-
tion ended up doing the ranch-
ers more harm than good.
“I think they used the Ham-
monds’ name to come here.
They were looking for a cir-
cumstance to raise the dick-
ens,” Harney County rancher
Scott Franklin said recently
while working in heat of the
vast high desert. “… They put
the Hammonds in the tough
spot. I’m sure there was that
thought that you can’t reward
the Hammonds with the par-
don and early release and have
those militia think that they
did it, because my gosh, what
other places would they go
and raise hell?”
The plan announced
Monday would spend $200
million to finish the cleanup
of nearly 8 square miles of
the 586-square-mile Han-
ford Nuclear Reservation,
where plutonium was made
for nuclear weapons during
World War II and the Cold
War.
The land involved in the
plan contains three of Han-
ford’s nine plutonium reactors.
Consult a
PROFESSIONAL
Conrad Wilson/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Harney County rancher Scott Franklin has about 40 cattle and calves on this plot of land.
In the distance is the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Days after the Hammonds
were pardoned, occupation
leaders and their supporters
returned to Burns for a pub-
lic celebration. Not everyone
welcomed them.
“I just never wanted those
people to come back to Har-
ney County again,” Frank-
lin said. “We don’t need them
here.”
Among the celebrants this
month was Pete Santilli, a con-
servative internet talk show
host who gained prominence
during the 2016 occupation.
“We’re reuniting and cel-
ebrating reuniting an Amer-
ican family,” Santilli told a
crowd in Burns and on social
media during a post-pardon
rally. “Thank you, President
Trump.”
Occupation
supporter
Brand Thornton also came
back to celebrate. He told
documentary filmmakers Sue
Arbuthnot and Richard Wil-
helm that the pardons sent a
powerful message: that the
occupation worked.
“So now we get the presi-
dential pardons, which really
underscores everything that
we’ve done and shows that we
were always on the right side,”
Thornton said. “And so it’s
extremely gratifying.”
Some Harney County
leaders disagree with that
interpretation.
“In order to justify their
own actions, they have to get
people to think that they have
credit for the pardons,” said
Harney County Sheriff Dave
Ward, who was the public face
of law enforcement during the
occupation. “The fact is they
deserve no credit.”
Ward said he’s glad that
the Hammonds are home.
Like many in the commu-
nity, he wrote the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice to support hav-
ing the Hammonds’ sentence
commuted.
“The Hammonds were
released because a lawful sys-
tem was followed,” Ward said.
“They probably sat in jail lon-
ger because people came in
and did a hostile takeover in
a small community, broke
the laws and waved the guns
around.”
For many in Harney
County, Trump’s pardon of the
Hammonds closes the book on
the occupation and a debate
that strained and divided the
community.
Former county judge Steve
Grasty was the county’s top
elected official during the
occupation. On a recent eve-
ning, he sat on the porch of his
house as the sun set over acres
of sage brush.
“I’m pretty happy to see
this saga in our community
end,” he said. “I think the
Hammonds coming home, out
of prison, all of that over, helps
that saga end.”
Grasty said there’s more to
talk about in Harney County
than the occupation. Enroll-
ment is up at local schools.
More business are moving into
the industrial park. And there’s
a newly renovated hotel open
in Burns.
“I want to see this commu-
nity truly vital and self-sus-
tainable,” he said. “Guys like
the occupation and all their
guns they brought didn’t do
anything to help that.”
Federal judge blocks release of
blueprints for 3D-printed guns
By MARTHA BELLISLE
and MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press
SEATTLE — A federal
judge on Tuesday stopped the
release of blueprints to make
untraceable and undetectable
3D-printed plastic guns as
President Donald Trump ques-
tioned whether his adminis-
tration should have agreed to
allow the plans to be posted
online.
The company behind the
plans, Austin, Texas-based
Defense Distributed, had
reached a settlement with the
federal government in June
allowing it to make the plans
for the guns available for
download today.
The restraining order from
U.S. District Judge Robert
Lasnik in Seattle puts that plan
on hold for now. “There is a
possibility of irreparable harm
because of the way these guns
can be made,” he said.
Washington state Attorney
General Bob Ferguson called
the ruling “a complete, total
victory.”
“We were asking for a nation-
wide temporary restraining
order putting a halt to this out-
rageous decision by the federal
government to allow these 3D
downloadable guns to be avail-
able around our country and
around the world. He granted
that relief,” Ferguson said at a
news conference after the hear-
ing. “That is significant.”
Eight Democratic attorneys
general had filed a lawsuit
Monday seeking to block the
settlement. They also sought
the restraining order, arguing
the 3D guns would be a safety
risk.
Congressional Democrats
have urged President Donald
Trump to reverse the decision
to publish the plans. At a news
conference Tuesday, Connecti-
cut Sen. Richard Blumenthal
said that if Trump does not
block sale, “Blood is going to
be on his hands.”
Trump said Tuesday that
Associated Press
AP Photo/Matthew Daly
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., left, and Sen. Richard Blu-
menthal, D-Ct., display a photo of a plastic gun Tuesday.
he’s “looking into” the idea,
saying making 3D plastic guns
available to the public “doesn’t
seem to make much sense!”
Trump tweeted that he
has already spoken with the
National Rifle Association
about the downloadable direc-
tions a Texas company wants
to provide for people to make
3D-printed guns. The guns are
made of a hard plastic and are
simple to assemble, easy to
conceal and difficult to trace.
“We don’t agree with Presi-
dent Trump very much,” Wash-
ington state Assistant Attorney
General Jeff Rupert told Las-
nik, “but when he tweeted ‘this
doesn’t make much sense,’ that’s
something we agree with.”
After a yearslong court
battle, the State Department
in late June settled the case
against Defense Distributed.
The settlement, which took
gun-control advocates by sur-
prise, allowed the company to
resume posting blueprints for
the hard-plastic guns at the end
of July. Those plans were put
on hold by the Seattle judge’s
decision.
During the hearing in Seat-
tle, Eric Soskin, a lawyer for
the U.S. Justice Department,
said they reached the settle-
ment to allow the company
to post the material online
because the regulations were
designed to restrict weapons
that could be used in war, and
the online guns were no dif-
ferent from the weapons that
could be bought in a store.
Since the weapons “did not
create a military advantage,”
he told the judge, “how could
the government justify regulat-
ing the data?”
But Rupert said a restrain-
ing order would keep the plans
away from people who have
learned about the technology
and want to use it to get around
gun laws.
Hours before the restrain-
ing order was issued, Demo-
crats sounded the alarm, warn-
ing about “ghost guns” that
can avoid detection and pose a
deadly hazard.
The company’s website
had said downloads would
begin today, but blueprints for
at least one gun — a plastic
pistol called the Liberator —
have been posted on the site
since Friday. A lawyer for the
company said he didn’t know
how many blueprints had been
downloaded since then.
Outrage over the admin-
istration decision is putting
gun control back into the elec-
tion-year political debate, but
with a high-tech twist.
The president seemed to
express surprise. He said on
Twitter he was looking into the
idea of a company providing
plans to the public for printing
guns, and he said it “doesn’t
seem to make much sense!”
Democrats agreed and said
Trump had the power to stop it.
Some Republicans also
expressed concern.
“Even as a strong supporter
of the Second Amendment —
this is not right,” Alaska Sen.
Lisa Murkowski tweeted,
linking to a news story on the
guns.
The NRA said in a state-
ment that “anti-gun politi-
cians” and some members of
the news media wrongly claim
that 3D printing technology
“will allow for the produc-
tion and widespread prolifer-
ation of undetectable plastic
firearms.”
In truth, “undetectable
plastic guns have been ille-
gal for 30 years,” said Chris
W. Cox, executive director
of the NRA’s political arm. A
federal law passed in 1988 —
crafted with NRA support —
bars the manufacture, sale or
possession of an undetectable
firearm.
Trump spokesman Hogan
Gidley made much the same
point, saying the administra-
tion supports the law against
wholly plastic guns, including
those made with a 3D printer.
But Democrats called
the law weak and said gun
users can get around it by
using weapons with a remov-
able metal block that the
gun doesn’t need in order to
function.
Democrats filed legislation
that would prohibit the publi-
cation of a digital file online
that allows a 3D printer to
manufacture a firearm. Demo-
crats also filed a separate bill
to require that all guns have at
least one non-removable com-
ponent made of metal so they
can be discovered by metal
detectors.
People can use the blue-
prints to manufacture plas-
tic guns using a 3D printer.
But industry experts have
expressed doubts that crimi-
nals would go to the trouble,
since the printers needed to
make the guns can cost thou-
sands of dollars, the guns
themselves tend to disinte-
grate quickly and traditional
firearms are easy to come by.
Q: Muscle spasms
can be a thing of
the past.
horses in the leg,facial tics
A: Charlie
and back spasms are all deficiency
ASTORIA
CHIROPRACTIC
Barry Sears, D.C.
503-325-3311
2935 Marine Drive
Astoria, Oregon
symptoms — muscles are irritated
and working too hard — they don’t
have the nutrients they need. Muscles
need calcium, magnesium and Vitamin
D taken together. Seventy-six percent
of Americans are deficient in those
nutrients. People may be OK until an
injury when the increased activity in
the hurt area causes the deficiency
symptoms. It is easy and quick to
correct. Time of day and dosage are
important and need to be adjusted
until the spasms stop. If you need help
figuring this out, call Dr. Sears.
Q: I have moved
to Astoria from
another state and
have an Advantage
Plan. Can I just
keep it?
Steve Putman
you have moved out
A: Since
of your current companies
Medicare Products service area you will need to notify
them of your new address. This will
503-440-1076 create a Special Election Period
in your new service area so you
can change to a new company
Licensed in Oregon
and available plan. Be aware you
and Washington
will have a designated time with a
putmanagency@gmail.com deadline to make that change.
necessarily wish to
Q: I be don’t
buried in a cemetery but
I’ve always been fond of
grave stones & the enduring
connection they represent
to survivors & successive
generations. What are my
options?
John R. Alcantara - Funeral Director
A:
Hughes-
Ransom
Mortuary
Astoria: 576 12th St.
503.325.2535
Seaside: 220 N. Holladay
503.738.6622
www.hughes-ransom.com
Ever since cremation has replaced
casketed burial as the dominant form
of final disposition in this country, much
has been written about this very topic. My
recommendation is have a cenotaph designed.
What is a cenotaph? The word itself derives
from the Greek “kenos taphos”, meaning empty
tomb. Historically they were used to mark the
graves of those whose body may never have
been recovered (times of war, lost at sea, or
in some sort of natural disaster or pestilence),
often times memorializing a group of individuals
who collectively met the same fate. Cenotaphs
don’t have to necessarily look like the traditional
gravestone. Please call us for additional details.
Q: My child’s baby teeth
have cavities. Why
should they be filled if
they are just going to
fall out in a few years?
JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR
DMD, FAGD
503/325-0310
1414 MARINE DRIVE,
ASTORIA
www.smileastoria.com
teeth are very import-
A: Children’s
ant to the health of the child and
the development of the dental jaw and
forming permanent teeth. Baby teeth
not only give the child chewing function,
cute esthetics, but also serve an important
role in the jaw formation. Premature loss
of primary teeth can adversely affect the
jaw growth, position and timing of the
eruption of permanent teeth, and if badly
decayed or infected be a source of pain,
sickness, and risk to other teeth. Please
have your dentist evaluate your child’s
“baby teeth”.
the IRS email,
Q: Clues
phone call or other
notice is fake.
LEO FINZI
Astorias
Best.com
IRS will never:
A: The
• Call to demand payment
using a specific method such as a
prepaid debit card, gift card or wire
transfer.
• Demand you pay taxes without the
opportunity to question or appeal
the amount you owe.
e are
• Threaten to bring in local police,
immigration officers etc. to have
ere to
you arrested for not paying. The IRS
elp
cannot revoke your driver’s license,
M-F, 10-6, Closed this Sat. & Sun.
business licenses, or immigration
77 11th Street, Suite H
status. Scam artists use these
Astoria, OR
schemes to trick victims.
503-325-2300
W
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