What augurs the acquittal of Ammon and Ryan Bundy in connection with their armed protest against federal overreach on western lands? In a stunning development in a closely watched case and after a careful trial, a United States jury concluded that the Bundy brothers and five of their confederates were, in fact, not guilty of the charges the Obama administration had levied. Nor did they, it reckoned, pose a threat to the public. In the long struggle over western lands, there haven’t been many moments like it.

In marking the importance of the verdict, we don’t want to be misunderstood as supporting, even en passant, the idea that it’s okay to rebel against America. During the standoff, the local sheriff accused the protestors of wanting to overthrow the county and federal governments. “If that’s their cause, we’re not with them,” the Sun said in an earlier editorial. “They’d be misfortunate sons, indeed.” We’d like to think — and there’s no reason not to — that the jurors who acquitted them felt the same way.

It took some bravery for the Bundy boys to refuse to plead in the Oregon case. All the more so because they are not out of jeopardy yet. The judge in district of Oregon, where the trial was held, refused after the acquittal to release the brothers, ordering them held for trial in the district of Nevada on charges related to the events in 2014 that have become known as the Bundy Standoff. That erupted over a dispute between the federal government and the paterfamilias, Cliven Bundy, over grazing fees on federal lands.

Cliven Bundy has horrified even some who might be inclined to sympathy with his cause because of his racist comments. All the more reason to view the Bundy’s protests in their broadest context, as part of the sagebrush rebellion that has been burning in the West for decades now. We’ve written that those of us who hearken to the school of economic thought known as public choice theory, which sees government as the competitor of private enterprise, view this story as an American classic.

It reminds of Daniel Shays, whose tax revolt at Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787 was, compared to what the Bundys have yet done, far worse (thousands were involved, and five persons were killed, including one on the government side; two rebels went to the gallows). And of the Whiskey rebellion, in which the President of America, General Washington, actually saddled up and went into battle against the rebels. The leading figures in the Shays, Whiskey, and Fries rebellions were pardoned, some by President Washington himself. If the Bundys are convicted, they should be so lucky.