It was *not* “the biggest firefight in the history of American law enforcement”.
The Jayuya Uprising on October 30th, in Puerto Rico, which was so violent that Truman declared martial law, after a whole bunch of killing by and of police and other government officials, sent in the Army and Air Force, who machine gunned rooftops in revolting villages.
The Tulsa race riot of March, 1921, with officially 39 to 300 dead, 800 injured, 35 city blocks burned.
The Watts riots of 1967. 34 people were dead, more than 2,000 injured, and almost 4,000 arrested.
Doesn’t the 1967 Detroit riots beat Watts?
NYC, July, 1863. 120 to 1000 dead.
Mountain Meadows, UT, 1857. 100 to 140 dead.
Colfax, LA, 1873. 80 to 150.
Although to be fair, most of these can’t really be called a “fire-fight” with law enforcement.
Of course, the same is arguably true of the Waco incident.
The appallingly bad tactics and judgment of the feds at Waco (if not something worse), should not blind us to the fact that Koresh was a pretty bad guy. Not unlike Warren Jeffs of the FLDS or Jim Jones of the Peoples Temple.
Following such a guy is not likely to end well.