That explains the destruction of evidence. What was the initial motivation for this assault?
Eventually, it was claimed they were serving a search warrant, which was testified to in the hearings before Congress to have been for grenade casings which had been observed by a delivery driver in a ruptured package.
Those casings which would likely have been used to make inert novelty 'grenades' (complaint dept, take a number) by the gun show cottage industry contingent there were not in and of themselves a prohibited item.
The same week as the raid, the "Sinful Messiah" tabloid-style front page newspaper stories came out, alleging that Koresh wash having sex with children and spanking babies...
Allegations of a meth lab on the premises were made as well.
Neither of the second two were in the purview of the BATF, the former dubious, simply because you do not arrive with two cattle trailers full of agents and the media in tow to simply serve a search warrant.
As the ATF had been invited by Koresh to inspect the business, (which dealers must, by law allow) and declined earlier, it seems strange they did not just drive up in the ordinary fleet of suburbans and produce the warrant and do the search.
No one present at the door had a copy of the warrant, either, which seems strange if that is what they were there to do.
FYI, the Davidians had a few cottage industries to generate income, one was the FFL dealership which did the gun-show circuit, another was a christian rock band, and yet another (off premises) restored cars and did automotive bodywork. The firearms related business was only one of those businesses.
Publicity stunt mostly. Plus the general heavy handedness of the BATF. IOW, pretty much their normal SOP, only more so.
The reason the Davidians knew they were coming was that they had notified the local media and one of them got lost. The person they asked directions of was a Davidian, who promptly notified Koresh that the BATF was coming. The BATF under cover agent was at the "compound" when Koresh received this message, and reported back to his superiors that surprise was lost. The dumb SOBs went ahead with the assault, which depended on surprise for any chance of success, anyway. And had their a$$es handed to them by the Davidians.
Implied threats to the right.I think this was conceived as some sort of Reichstag moment but the Leaders didn't get the population rallying to the government side and it led to the formation of a tremendous amount of arms and ammo hoarding and hiding all over the country. It was meant as an object lesson to the opposition and turned into kind of an object lesson for the Leaders.