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No one ever showed up. No tanks ever came to Bunkerville. No sound weapons, no tear gas, no flash grenades. No sniper rifles, except those in the hands of the civilians. The militiamen assembled freely, dispersed freely.

Not one of them is in jail. Not one of them is in Ferguson, either. But perhaps that goes without saying too.

Like I said, I liked Marky. I liked a lot of the men I met at the Bundy ranch—their humanity was evident, despite their rhetoric, despite their guns, despite their military-issue camouflage, despite their self-aggrandizing yearning for a confrontation that was not going to come.

I have not been to Ferguson. I do not need to go to Ferguson to recognize the humanity of the people who have been protesting since Saturday the death of an unarmed 18-year-old. I do not need to see past the protestors’ guns or camouflage, because they do not have guns or camouflage. I do not need to see past their rhetoric, because their rhetoric is simple and self-evident: Don’t shoot. And yet their confrontation has come anyway.

Why did the police occupy Ferguson and not to Bunkerville? Why "riots" in Ferguson and "patriots" in Bunkerville? There was some looting on Sunday night—not a full-scale, weapons-drawn confrontation with federal officers. But some televisions were stolen. Perhaps that’s it? A police officer who took a civilian’s life now fears for his own—no one actually pointed a gun at him; in fact, no one even knows his name. But perhaps that’s it. The Ferguson police department has an inordinate amount of military-grade hardware, ideal for controlling an armed-domestic threat—not that the people in Ferguson are either armed, or a threat, but perhaps that’s it. They have the gear. Why not use it?

We know the fact that the police are occupying Ferguson and not Bunkerville has nothing to do with the race of the individuals involved, because we’ve been told by the chief of police there that "race relations is a top priority," and we have no reason to doubt the precision, or accuracy, of what this man says. ("More than just a couple times, but not much more.") We know it’s not because the media has failed to cover one and not the other, because the media has covered both, though in only one case were reporters tear-gassed and arrested.

Perhaps the police are in Ferguson because someone’s actually dead. Perhaps it’s because someone’s at fault.

In Bunkerville, I asked a man from New Hampshire named Jerry DeLemus, who was leading some of the militia guys there, Are you afraid, that the government might come back, and what they might do?

"I’ve had the talk with every single person out here. There’s a chance, a good chance, that if the federal government decides to put their full weight and come in here and try to get us, they’ll kill every one of us. They will kill every single one of us. So they have the power to do it. They would crush us."

But you’d shoot back?

"Oh, if they started shooting at us, you betcha. And I’ll tell you what, they’ll have a bloody nose, and I’ll tell you what: the American people will rise up. Go ahead."

But no one ever came to Bunkerville.

Zach Baron (@xzachbaronx) is a GQ_’s staff writer._