
So, you approve of the BATF launching a 100-person raid, complete
with flack jackets, men hidden in horse trailers, stun grenades,
semi-auto weapons on peaceful citizens?  who would also accept
a search authoried by a court?

There is still no proof that the Branch Davidians had illegal weapons.
Nothing else was in the jurisdiction of the BATF, unless they were
thought to have a still, or be smoking untaxed cigarettes.

The automatic firearms violation is a TAX matter !  You don't serve
no-knock warrants on someone with .50 CAL MGs.  It isn't necessary
(they can't flush a machine gun down a toilet, you know), and it isn't
smart (if you are right, you got a good chance of getting blown away.
if you are wrong, you shouldn't have done it.)


The stupidity was indeed related to this.  But the stupidity may have been to
attempt to serve the warrant by ludicrously over-armed, over-protected
and over-confident gestapo.  Escalation isn't automatically brilliant.

IT WAS A TAX MATTER !  YOU CAN"T FLUSH MGs DOWN THE TOILET !
YOU DON"T NEED NO-KNOCK WARRANTS FOR EVERYTHING.

Actually, IMHO nothing justifies them, but that is another argument .
There wasn't any murder of police officers.  There was probable cause
to arrest them for murder perhaps.  We US citizens are innocent until proven
guilty.

There also wasn't any killing until the BATF screwed up real bad.


Lew