Timothy McVeigh — and was not written with malevolent intent." On April 26, 2001, McVeigh wrote a letter to Fox News, "I Explain Herein Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City", which explicitly laid out his reasons for the attack. McVeigh read "Unintended Consequences" and said that if it had come out a few years earlier, he would have given serious consideration to using sniper attacks in a war of attrition against the government instead of bombing a federal building. McVeigh's accomplice, Terry Nichols, was convicted and sentenced in federal court to life in prison for his role in
Timothy McVeigh people he wanted to be a gun shop owner and sometimes took firearms to school to impress his classmates. McVeigh became intensely interested in gun rights, as well as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, after he graduated from high school, and read magazines such as "Soldier of Fortune". He briefly attended Bryant & Stratton College before dropping out. In May 1988, at the age of 20, McVeigh graduated from the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. While in the military, McVeigh used much of his spare time to read about firearms, sniper tactics, and explosives.