I told you. ATF tried to get Randy Weaver to spy for them. Be an informant. Then stand up in open court and accuse people of stuff. He said no. Then they, the ATF, ran their undercover man at him who tried to get him to cut off the barrels of a shotgun shorter than 18". He cut the barrels exactly 18", no less, but ATF measured them their way, and pronounced them too short and secured an indictment of Weaver for something he didn't do, because of something else he didn't do that they had no power to compel him to do.
BATF has a history of e.g. seizing semiautomatic guns, greasing up the sears with thick gun-grease until the sears won't catch, and then videotaping the gun slam-firing in a "runaway gun" mode. Then they sign a complaint alleging the gun's owner had converted it to full-auto.
They pull crap like that on gun owners who won't cooperate the way Weaver did, in ATF "investigations" of other gun owners that they want to "get". People who have weapons collections or unpopular political views or socially unacceptable opinions or bad manners or bad-looking hair and wardrobes.
Is any of this getting through to you yet? They step on people because they don't like them, or just to show everybody who's the boss. That's what Wayne LaPierre was talking about, and he documented other cases where ATF agents have acted in that same manner.
Waco was supposed to be a big version of what they did to Randy Weaver: bust in on them, drag them outside, throw them on the ground, and videotape them. Then drag some people off to jail. Film at six. And just in time for the ATF appropriations discussions up on the Hill.
Ruby Ridge was all about "do what we tell you to do, when we tell you to do it, or you will go to prison by hook or by crook."
Thanks for the elucidation. I knew some of the above, but not all.
Is the ATF as bad as it was then?