At about that time I found in the post office here some pamphlets on religion. I read them and realized they were from a Missouri sect of the Branch Davidians.
There was nothing in all that writing about committing suicide or violence, just a call for people to return to their religious doctrines of the Seventh Day Adventist church of which the Davidians were an offshoot.
I was being sarcastic. I believe that there were two main reasons: 1. To intimidate people who believe that the Bill of Rights actually means something particularly the second amendment and 2. To allow the FBI and ATF agents to see that they can commit mass murder with impunity- that for all future American versions of the Stasi, Gestapo, NKVD, KGB, milice, etc you have nothing to fear from committing atrocities.