ABSTRACT
On July 4, 1994, Nevada rancher Dick Carver, carrying a copy of the US Constitution, took a bulldozer to force open a closed road on US Forest Service land without waiting for federal approval. The incident was planned and publicized at the local level, and Forest Service employees were sent to stop Carver. He ended up forcing one of them out of the way as he plowed a short section of roadbed. Approximately 200 onlookers, many of them armed, encouraged Carver to continue, and some seemed eager for confrontation. Although the incident ended peacefully, Carver later claimed that the crowd would have shot the armed Forest Service employee on the spot had he reached for his gun (Larson 1995).
