Once More into the Breech!
This has been an excellent thread but very disturbing as well.
First, I refer you again (as I did in a separate post) to this site:
http://www.guncite.com/journals/okslip.html
It's a long and very thorough examination of the mechanics of how societies fall, or are pushed, down slippery slopes that deprive them of valuable and important civil rights. It uses the history of the loss of gun ownership rights in England as an example, but is really an examination of how it is an accumulation of small acts and failures to act that result in loss of rights and can very easily lead to tyranny. And, remember, well-intentioned tyranny is probably the worst kind! The relevance of this learned essay to NKW, SWAT, and my comments below should be evident.
My stance against the use of NKW and SWAT was a visceral thing, unrelated to informative data, until I started reading this thread. That there are now 50,000 NKW's and God only knows how many 'announce and enter' warrants annually is an abysmal black eye on the criminal justice system. All of you in LE risk becoming like minions at the lower level of the Gestapo who followed the direction of their superiors and left the thinking and value judgments to others. (NOTE: I did not here nor do I ever called LEOs the Gestapo; I merely point out how slippery some slopes are.) This issue - the increased militarization of LE - will indeed make LEOs the enemies of law-abiding, decent citizens if it is not stopped on constitutional grounds.
The parallels drawn to the Branch Davidian raid outside Waco,TX by Wuchak are as accurate as a Marine sniper! Before you dismiss me as a leftie or a kook, be advised that I visited the grounds of the Branch Davidian Compound within 18 months of the botched raid. At the time I was just idly curious, was in the neighborhood, and had the time. Like much of the nation I had seen some or most of the footage aired by the MSM. Because I 'didn't have a dog in the fight', I kind of figured that the tales about the aberration attributed to D. Koresh were the root cause and that the ATF and its confederates were guilty of little more than over-reacting to the death of their probing scout who was shown so many times being hit on the roof.
After my Sunday afternoon drop-in visit, my attention became much more focused. Standing there, I could not conceive of how the public peace could have been threatened, much less how or why the LEO could have wreaked such brutal, unnecessary havoc. BECAUSE OF THE REMOTE LOCATION AND LIMITED ROAD ACCESS THE BRANCH DAVIDIANS COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN A THREAT TO SOMEONE WHO ATTACKED THEM. A squad of old men could have held them at bay for months - long enough to have starved them out and peacefully resolved any issues at law that they might have infringed. NO PERSON OF REASONABLE INTELLECT COULD POSSIBLY CONCLUDE ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT THE LOSS OF LIFE ON BOTH SIDES WAS DUE SOLELY TO THE ENORMOUSLY BAD AND HUGELY INCOMPETENT COMMAND AND CONTROL EXERTED BY THE FEDS!!!! I have since seen countless TV programs including interviews with some of the principals who put endless spin on their actions. All I can say is that they will find their punishment in HELL because it looks like they have avoided it in our society.
I have spoken at length with the now retired Texas Ranger Captain in whose district the site exists. His assessment - and I have come to agree with it entirely based on my own personal research - is that the BDs posed no threat to anyone, that the Rangers and local LE (county sheriff) knew about the alleged arsenal as it was being acquired and thought it legal and harmless, and THAT THERE WAS NEVER A NEED FOR A WARRANT OR A RAID BY THE FEDS. The county sheriff and Koresh were well known to each other and on friendly terms. The sheriff would have been welcomed at the compound for any on-site inspection and would have been given carte blanche. If the feds had not been so arrogant and so conceited and asked the locals and enlisted their aid to gain an invitation to inspect informally, IT NEVER WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. THE ONLY ANALOGY I CAN DRAW IS THAT OF JACK-BOOTED NAZI LEOs, MORE CONCERNED ABOUT SATISFYING THEIR HUBRIS THAN ABOUT DOING THEIR JOB LAWFULLY.
In addition to the gross incompetence of the commanders on the ground, and their inability to control their troops - especially after one of their SWAT scouts got himself shot and killed by his own ill-conceived actions - there are at least 3 other reasons for everyone to become incensed over it. First, the ATF has been given powers that have been, at the very least, exerted excessively (if not arrantly abused). This organization needs to be disbanded and its charters integrated into other LEOs. Second, the extent to which the US military participated in the raid has never been examined fully and openly communicated to the American people. IMO use of the US military for civil LE should only be possible with a warrant from the SCOTUS justices and co-signed by POTUS! The use of 'support' is far, far more common and is virtually unconstrained by political accountability or public knowledge. Third, the action was supposedly approved after review by the Attorney General of the US. Either that review was so incompetent as to be classed 'criminal' or the judgment was based on a more far-reaching need to establish principal.
Remember, too, that the Oklahoma City bombing was a direct result of fear and loathing generated by the execrable performance at Waco. The OKC bombings were misguided, senseless, criminal and in no way excusable; but we must all remember that it was caused by LEO incompetence on a grand scale.
The fact that we are now all inured to the pain and shock of both Waco and OKC - and the fact that our federal government has spun to stories to their favor while the MSM has under-reported and failed to criticize those culpable - has just raised the water temperature and we frogs have not hopped out and demanded REAL CHANGE. The next step in the loss of civil liberty will be easier to accomplish because we haven't screamed BLOODY MURDER!
