Timmy, some of us are old enough to remember 1993.
Some of us are old enough to remember the whole 1993 Waco debacle.
You clearly are not.
Koresh's firearms work was, as far as anyone knew at that moment, done strictly inside the letter and spirit of the law.
The allegations of child abuse were unsupported by ANY evidence whatsoever. They were made solely to get the state of Texas to loan helicopters to the assault.
If the Feds had wanted to arrest Koresh, all they had to do was wait, out of sight, until he went out in one of his routine jogging runs. He routinely jogged alone, outdoors. (Source: the Waco sheriff, in the press, at the time.)
As for walking out the door with his hands up, get real: The BATFinks showed up, WITH AN ARMY!, and, instead of knocking at the door, just immediately started shooting. At that point, NOBODY in anything even remotely resembling his right mind is going to walk out the door, with his hands up or down, empty or full of a weapon.
Once the siege was laid, Koresh believed, apparently with justification, that the government's intent was to kill him and everyone there. (Ask why the fire trucks were held back, over a mile from the house, when the final conflagration started.)
Being a fucking nut is not supposed to be a capital crime in this country.
Originally Posted by Sidewinder
Sorry, but you're a liar. Koresh was in possession of dozens of automatic weapons without the necessary license required by the NFA. He was in violation of federal firearms law and the only evidence anybody needs to confirm that is the news coverage video of the ATF raid on the compound showing the hundreds of rounds of automatic rifle fire coming out of the compound during the ATF's attempt to serve it's lawfully issued search and arrest warrants.
The ATF showed up at the compound to enforce federal law and the only thing that needed to be done in order to avoid a conflict was for Koresh to surrender and assert whatever legal rights he thought he might have in a court of law...same as every other US citizen. If he had done that, the whole thing would have been over...but for him going to prison...Instead, he and his followers opened up on federal law enforcement agents with automatic weapons, killing and wounding a dozen or so.
After that, Koresh refused to surrender himself to legal authorities, instead choosing to endanger the lives of the men, women and children that he was in control of in the compound. He could have walked out of that compound anytime....and spared the lives of all of those people. Instead, he acted like the fucking psycho drama queen he was....and he got all those people killed. The whole thing could have been avoided if Koresh hadn't been a complete psycho.
None of this even addresses the issue of Koresh fucking the little girls that were part of his cult. He was a fucking piece of shit. You take his side if you like....