BS. This guy was preaching the end of the world, and the seven seals of Revelation. This was going to be a fight whether or not The FBI or local authorities were called in. You can't seriously be that naïve.
I guess I am.
A peaceful solution was never on the table even though that group never showed any kind of hostility towards anyone. Nobody. Yet, the ATF comes in, guns blazing and firing first? How about that "lost" evidence that would have showed the rounds were shot from the outside in? How do you "lose" a freaking steel door out of a set of two?
No, I have my eyes opened that the government at the time, specifically the ATF, was far more eager to use force to get its way than they should have been. And if you can't see that, you're blind as a bat.
You brought up Ruby Ridge and Waco in the same sentence. The initial meme that started this was in a thread about the NRA.
No, the original meme used was stupid as ****:
Which obviously is either someone saying the government can and should be allowed to trample all over your rights or the poster was a moron.
Or both...
To which I replied that really wasn't the image he should be using in context of the discussion. And made the suggestion that perhaps he should use the innocents murdered at Ruby Ridge as an example of the government using overwhelming force to enforce its will.
The 2nd amendment is absolutely on the cursory of this incident, and I've heard that argument from others. It's disgusting. This is not Ruby Ridge.
Then let's keep it at the Second Amendment and not worry about jack booted thugs and their massive screwups at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
ATF/FBI could have gone in earlier than 51 days. If they were so eager to use force, they would have gone in the first week. The davidians were waiting with guns too, ready to fight. They were using kids as human shields. They knew that would buy them time. This whole idea that the ATF escalated everything is just wrong. After the Ruby Ridge fallout, I seriously doubt they would have gone in the way they did if there wasn't concern for the kids welfare.
The Davidians prepared for a fight when they heard the raid was coming in. The ATF could have and should have called off the raid right then and there despite them knowing their raid was blown.
Don't hand my this nonsense about kids. This was not about kids at all.
And you know good and well, picking up Koresh wouldn't have solved a thing. He would have ordered his followers to stay and fight no matter what, and probably had been preaching that for years. No way anybody was getting into to see those guns and coming out without a fight. They stayed in even after the "assault" started. Some committed suicide. Are you really suggesting if Koresh would have been arrested in town, or they would have waited longer, or one person had gone in to look at the guns, it would have ended differently?
Anything is possible, but I wouldn't bet my lunch money on that one.
How would he have ordered his followers to stand and fight when he would have been locked up...?
And you don't know if a peaceful solution could have been found since the ATF went in, again, looking for a fight. There was never, NEVER a peaceful solution even considered.
Open your eyes and see what happened instead of what you want to see. This wasn't about kids. It was about the State trying to use overwhelming force to show who was boss. And people, to include ATF Agents, lost their lives because of it.