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Waco week
I attended the Waco memorial this year, first time in years that I haven't had some emergency supervene. I think next week on this blog will be largely devoted to that topic. I found it amazing how forgiving the Davidians are. Example: in front of the rebuilt church is a memorial to the BATF agents killed in the initial assault, and to the dead of Oklahoma City:
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More than 1/3 of the Davidians who died were black. * If Waco had happened today, do you think the #BlackLivesMatter crowd and their supporters would have condemned this act of police brutality (at the risk of having their NPR tote-bag privileges revoked)? Or would they still lick the government boot as they did back then?
* There's an appendix in the back of David Kopel's book "No More Wacos" (1997) that lists the details of each victim by name, age, race, nationality, etc. I'm not going to say "African-American" because most of them were British. UPDATE: That list is also here at http://www.carolmoore.net/waco/waco-victims.html
For 20+ years I have wondered exactly which lathe and exactly which milling equipment was at the Davidian compound.
At one time I read that Koresh had an Atlas 10 -- that is as close as I ever got to knowing the specifics. Does anybody
know, or are there any photos?
I have 3 lathes, including an Atlas 10F, and a Bridgeport J-head mill in my garage at home. This question hits close to
the heart for me.
The FBI commentary on the basis of the warrant is clearly a reflection of Sandra Day O'conner's reasoning in
United States v. Thompson-Center Arms Company. Both specifically mention a rifle barrel and a hacksaw. For
20+ years I have assumed that the specific actions of the FBI were, at least in part, an attempt to flesh out the framework
for what constitutes constructive possession of a Class 3 weapon. This is a great subject for a law review article!
I'm glad you made the pilgrimage, which is something that I would have liked to do. I viewed the video of the tragedy, and although I haven't played it for a while (it's really horrible to watch) many of those images are among those which I cannot purge from my mind's eye.
Personally, I think there should have been erected a 100' tall obelisk so that everyone would be reminded of the wrongs which were committed there. It was a governmental agency out of control, and a national leadership which just didn't care enough to rein in its attack dogs.
We should all be reminded of the ills which our government can (and did) inflict upon private citizens.
The worst of it is that nobody who was involved in the massacre of innocents spent a day in prison.
People today say "oh, this can never happen here; this is AMERICA!" because this is the Land Of The Free and the Home Of The Brave. But the ills which were inflicted here, and at other places, have been largely forgotten by now.
How can this be?
I only hope that some of the people who were assaulting that "compound" still have nightmares.
Because they should.
Whatever David Koresh (Vernon Howell) did or did NOT do ... the rest of the residents of that place should not have paid with their lives; and the children suffered a thousand times worse treatment from their government than they ever did from Koresh.
They should have received better from "The Good Guys".