Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
No point, just fyi. When Google Imageg searching for the pictures I posted in
#8, I found that little blurb written last year by the BBC News. 
Posted on 08/19/2002 11:18:23 PM PDT by Selmo
Randy Weaver, still wiry after 10 years out of the limelight, his dark hair turned silver, was signing autographs for fellow survivalists at an Independent American Party convention in Elko, Nev., in April when someone asked if he would act differently if he could relive the horrible 11-day siege at Ruby Ridge.
"I would have put on my full camo," Weaver said, looking at his questioner, "and shoot them in the back. As many as I could."
It has been a decade since Weaver, waiting for Armageddon while holed up in a crude cabin in the Selkirk Mountains of Northern Idaho just 40 miles south of the Canadian border, engaged in a firefight with federal law enforcement agents.
The Aug. 21, 1992, shoot-out resulted in the deaths of three people - Weaver's wife, Vicki, holding an infant daughter when she was shot through the head by an FBI sniper; their 13-year-old son, Sammy; and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan. It also raised serious questions about the use of force and abuse of police powers by FBI agents and other law enforcement officials.
Weaver surrendered to authorities and, in July 1993, was acquitted of murder charges related to Degan's death. The FBI wasn't as fortunate. Subsequent investigations were critical of law enforcement's methods - gunfire occurred before the Weavers were afforded an opportunity to surrender - and the federal government in 1995 settled damage claims by paying Weaver and three surviving daughters $3.1 million.
The incident helped spawn an American militia movement that continues today, although its popularity appears to have waned. It also served, in the view of many, as a prime example of the abuse of federal law enforcement powers. The bombing of the federal government building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh in April 1995, leaving more than 150 dead, reportedly was motivated, at least in part, by revenge for what is known as the Shootout at Ruby Ridge.
Gerry Spence, the legendary attorney who successfully represented Weaver at trial, said the Idaho standoff and similar incidents, like the deaths of David Koresh and his followers in Waco, Texas, show what can occur when police powers are not properly checked.
"Where there is excess of power there will always be abuse of power," Spence said. "The people of this country are more and more acceding to the intervention of government into their lives. They look to the government for protection and more and more are willing to give up their rights in exchange for promises by the government for protection.
"The question then, of course, is who protects them from the government?" he said.
Spence said he and Weaver are "worlds apart philosophically" but he felt compelled to represent a man who believes in racial separation with ties to the Aryan nation because he was victimized by governmental abuse of power.
"We can expect increasingly more of it," he said.
Weaver and his family moved to Ruby Ridge in late 1983 to escape what they viewed as a sinful world. The home Weaver built with his own hands had neither electricity nor running water. Family members settled in and waited for the second coming.
According to a Justice Department report, Weaver first came to the attention of federal law enforcement personnel in 1985 after reportedly making threats against then-President Ronald Reagan and Idaho Gov. John Evans. A Secret Service investigation showed that Weaver mingled with members of the Aryan Nation, a white supremacist group, and had a cache of weapons including handguns and rifles and access to explosives and "an unlimited amount of ammunition."
Weaver denied making the threats and told agents he had "no time for Aryan Nation's preachers." But in July 1989, Weaver appeared as a speaker at the World Aryan Congress and met up with Kenneth Fadeley, an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In October, after several conversations, Weaver sold Fadeley a pair of sawed-off shotguns for $300.
It was this incident, and Weaver's subsequent indictment on weapons charges, that led to the shootout. Federal agents initially tried to use the gun charge as leverage to get Weaver to inform on the Aryan nation. He refused. On Aug. 21, 1992, three deputy U.S. marshals were on Weaver's Ruby Ridge property trying to determine how best to bring him into custody when the shootout occurred, leaving Degan and Sammy Weaver dead. An FBI sniper killed Vicki Weaver the next day.
John Trochmann, a Weaver family friend and co-founder of the Militia of Montana, witnessed the standoff and described it as "a sad time in our lives when certain federal agencies exercised their might over the people."
Like Spence, Trochmann believes an incident like Ruby Ridge can occur again, noting that, "it happened again in Waco, Texas."
For a time, Trochmann said, it appeared the FBI and other agencies were using more subtle tactics. In 1996, for instance, the FBI was engaged in an 81-day siege involving about two-dozen heavily armed members of the Freemen group, hunkered down in a Montana ranch. The Freemen, who reject governmental authority, were wanted for passing bogus checks amounting to about $15 billion. The incident ended without violence.
But Trochmann said in the wake of 9/11, the federal government's attitude might be changing again.
"Based on past performance, I believe a mission creep is in progress," Trochmann said. "There is a homeland defense force being created that can do much the same thing."
It amazes me to see that, after all of these years and so much discussion, the "truth" about Weaver is still obscured by the picture painted by the media. For example, the length of the shotgun(s) Weaver sold to the govt informant. Weaver was well aware of the 18 inch barrel requirement, and did not saw the barrels to an illegal length. The feds prosecuted him on a sub-section to this law that states that the overall length of the weapon had to be at least 26 inches long. Weaver maintains that when he gave the weapons to the informant, they were legal - at the limit, but legal. It was later demonstrated in court that someone removed approximately 3/8 of an inch from the buttstock of the weapon to make the overall length under the minimum. Weaver was not, in the end, convicted of this violation.
There are alternative sources for this information, including a book written by his lawyer, Gerry Spence about all of this. I suggest that you read up and get the other side of the story before you mouth off about what you don't know.
You may not agree with Weaver's racial stance, but he violated no laws, and did not deserve the hammer of the Federal govt crashing down upon him, and eventually the govt agreed and paid Weaver and his children over 3 million dollars for the mistake. This whole incident started when Weaver told the Feds to go to hell when they demanded that he join the Ayran Nation group and become an informant for the govt. It should be obvious by now to everyone that the govt does not like it when they are told to piss off.
As an aside to all of this, even if the shotguns were otherwise illegal, it is not illegal to possess them, if a $5.00 tax is paid to the ATF for a short barreled weapon. So you might say this whole incident was over a non-payment of a $5.00 "tax".
Anybody out there ever owe the govt 5.00?
"Waco Test Run"?????
You mean this kook racist, Randy Weaver was raping children and turning his followers into Jim Jones Kool-Aid drinking suicidal morons too???
Isn't there an Art Bell Message Board for you freaks?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
No point, just fyi. When Google Imageg searching for the pictures I posted in
#8, I found that little blurb written last year by the BBC News.
s/b Google Image
I think most people recognize that Weaver and Koresh (two different guys in case you're unaware) certainly bear responsibility for their actions. The problem is their actions have been distorted in the press and the action of the feds have never truly been exposed nor have they been held accountable.
I'm TIRED of shutting up!
I've sit by and let all these government hating WHACKED-OUT KOOKS defend the racist Randy Weaver (Who himself defends Timothy FREAKING McVey of all people) and the leader of that suicidal, pedophile DEATH CULT David Koresh and kept my mouth shut.
I'm tired of being grouped with these NUTS simply because I'm a Republican. If you want to praise idiots like McVey, Koresh and Weaver, I wish you would take it to places like StormFront.org where it BELONGS!
Spoken like a truly ignorant govophile. You remembered the Jan "The Man" standard enemies smear - "raping children", but you forgot the methamphetamine smear and the automatic weapons smear.
I don't know if you're suicidal, but you are certainly moronic. ;-)
This explains a lot. We're mostly conservatives around here, not particularly Republicans.
We call the Republicans "The Stupid Party", for a very good reason. I believe that you are showing people the reason. ;-)
And BTW - if it's OK for a black spokesman to want to "slap" random white people around, it's OK for Weaver to have his own views on things.
When you call Weaver a "racist", you're just parroting what the Democrat media says about him - the same Democrat media that won't utter a peep about the black racist Charles Barron. If you want to be a socket puppet for the media race pimps, you're welcome to the title - just don't include me in on your little delusional episode.
They're both racist scum. What's your point?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
You mean like when the government moves up a court date without telling you then puts out warrants for you? Any reasonable reading of the events show that agents were clearly doing unethical things to coerce him into spying for them against Aryan Nations. I thik the group is dangerous and stupid, but that doesn't mean that I'm obligated to go to the extent of infiltrating such a group.
Probably another in the long line of liberals who joined Free Republic in the days following 9-11, because they were in shock about what had happened, and were in danger of waking up and coming to their senses. Alas, Johnny-Boy here seems to have slipped back into his liberal shell...
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
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