You are right. I’ve been around, I mean I’ve read about militias for some decades now and this is nothing new.
“Randy Weaver was a typical American dad. He had a loving family, including his wife Vicky, one son named Sam and three daughters including a ten-month old baby. Like millions of other Americans, they were simple people who just wanted to be left alone. The family lived in a beautiful rural Idaho area called Ruby Ridge. For 18 months, various federal police agencies repeatedly intimidated Randy in an attempt to get him to work as an infiltrator for them to spy on the slew of religious, racial or separatist organizations popping up all over the American northwest.
Weaver repeatedly declined. He’d been to some of those gun shows and events out of curiosity if nothing else. While he was a typical proud white, Christian, husband, father and American, he was simply rubbed the wrong way by those organizations and didn’t associate with them. That was probably one of the main reasons the FBI, BATF and US Marshals continued to pursue him as a hired spy. When Weaver continued to refuse, the agents suddenly turned their fury on him and his family.
First, they convinced him to customize a shotgun into a sawed-off shotgun, not illegal and a typical thing many gun owners do. But federal agents confiscated the gun and determined the barrel was one-quarter of an inch too short, and thus illegal”
It’s apparent that the left considers “just wanting to be left alone” to be a capital crime.
"They" in this case was a BATF under cover individual who took two years to befriend Weaver. Living with and staying with the Weavers up in the mountains there in northern Idaho.
Weaver thought the guy was his friend and that year Weaver needed a little extra money for his family. He did not want to do this, he wanted to keep his shotgun, but since he needed some money and since he felt he could trust this individual he did so and cut the barrel where his "friend" indicated he wanted it cut.
The guy knew exactly what he was doing and knew that cut was too short and would make it illegal. it was the entire purpose of their "sting," on Weaver.
When the individual then revealed who he was working for, and asked again for Weaver to infiltrate said extremist groups but now using the threat of a crime to try and coerce Weaver, Weaver told him to go straight to hell and walked away.
We know what happened next.
The Federal Fiasco and Murder at Ruby Ridge