Blood on the ground in Oregon, and for what?

There's blood on the snowy ground in Oregon, blood that should never have been shed, and that was shed without purpose.

FBI special agents and Oregon State Police officers on Tuesday shot and killed LaVoy Finicum, who had been a part of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., for the last several weeks. Finicum allegedly sped away from a traffic stop and then emerged from a pickup truck at a police roadblock, charging at officers and allegedly reaching for his waistband.

Finicum served as a spokesman for the band of self-styled militia types who'd been occupying federal buildings on the refuge in an attempt to force authorities to transfer federal lands to state or local control. (Their crusade draws on a misguided, legally unsupported view that stands against federal ownership or control of western public lands.)

Back in January, Finicum presaged his own demise, telling NBC reporter Tony Dokoupil, "I have no intention of spending any of my days in a concrete box," and that while he loved life, "There are things more important than your life — and freedom is one of them. I'm prepared to defend freedom."

But Finicum didn't die for freedom. He died because he refused the lawful orders of duly appointed law enforcement officers, and chose to confront them instead.

At least one person among the band of people arrested by police in the traffic stop from which Finicum fled claimed that Finicum had been executed by cops as he raised his hands to surrender. But at least one other person — a member of the occupiers — reported that Finicum, in fact, refused to obey orders and confronted cops.

The FBI released an edited video showing the shooting on Thursday evening. It shows Finicum emerging from his truck with his hands raised, but as officers close in, he lowers his hands and appears to be reaching repeatedly for his waistband before he's felled by police gunfire. Greg Bretzing, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Portland field office, confirmed that Finicum had a 9mm pistol in an inside pocket of his jacket when he was shot.

Bloodshed is the inevitable and predictable result of this kind of confrontation. It was narrowly averted in April 2014 here in Nevada, as BLM officers and self-styled militia squared off over the ranch of welfare cowboy Cliven Bundy near Bunkerville. In that case, the BLM backed down. (Two of Bundy's sons, Ammon and Ryan, were leaders of the Oregon standoff and are now in federal custody.)

But whether it was Bunkerville, Nev., or Burns, Ore., it was inevitable someone was going to get hurt. That's what happens when you point guns at police, and they point guns back.

That's why it's important to calm the rhetoric and confine protests to the legal mechanisms society has in place for that purpose. We specifically don't want to do what Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, did, and take to Twitter to claim Finicum had been "murdered." Even worse was Assemblywoman Shelly Shelton, R-Las Vegas, who took to Facebook to post a rant comparing Finicum with Moses and Jesus Christ, men whom she says were considered criminals in their day but who really acted on God's command for the betterment of their fellow humans.

That level of delusion is hard to contemplate without benefit of advanced training in abnormal psychology. Need we remind the assemblywoman that Jesus advised his followers to turn the other cheek, and when the authorities came for him, Jesus gave himself up to death willingly and without armed resistance? Or that Moses rebelled against a government that held his people as slaves, without rights to protest the conditions of their confinement?

Finicum was nothing like either man. He and his fellow protesters put themselves into harm's way by staging an illegal protest, making impossible demands based on dubious interpretations of the law. They refused repeated entreaties from everyone from the local sheriff to federal authorities to leave peacefully. They created the circumstances in which a dangerous confrontation was likely. And, ultimately, Fincium made a choice that cost him his life.

No, he's not like Moses, or Jesus, or Martin Luther King Jr. Those men stood for something. Finicum died for nothing, a tragic, senseless and pointless death that should never have happened.

— Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and co-host of the show "PoliticsNOW," airing at 5:30 p.m. Sundays on 8NewsNow. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.