Unless I am mistaken, it was in magnitude but not in principle. Koresh was a Christian leader of a community including women and children who were ordered to die by people at the highest level of the Federal government.
To my knowledge, "the Feds;" i.e., with tanks and full military, were not there. No women and children were targeted. And no, although state police now use equipment such as MRAPS, it is not the same. Whether the Feds were there or not, this was clearly a situation in which the State had at least the appearance of being the lead agency, not the BATFE.
Both Waco and Ruby Ridge were PR disasters because innocents were slaughtered by Federal agencies. Nobody is thinking that bikers qualify for that status. Hence, the two are substantively different.
“No women and children were targeted” Pure misdirection. Reno cared not a whit that there were children int hat compound when she sent the stormtroopers in to terminate the residency. Ask yourself, at Waco was Ron the Gun prosecuted for murdering a mother holding her child, with his ‘marksmanship head shot’? The vil relies on people making excuses for them because the people are unable to believe the regime is really this evil.