Posted on 12/23/2002 10:57:45 PM PST by tarawa
Kick down 100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try again in Texas, with 100 NRA members.
Do this often enough and the NRA members might shoot back, but for the first 100, the results would probably be the same in Texas as in France. The shock or surprise factor is hard to overcome. As is the feeling that there must be some reason for the action or possibility of appeal. We did have our own internment camps in 1942, and there were no armed rebellions.
Great article, but I disagree on the above point. Just weeks before Sept. 11th, 2001 I watched live TV footage of the BATF burn a guy's house down in California while he was inside. His crime: owning illegal guns (by California's definition, which means that almost anything but a pea shooter that hasn't been registered through several different layers of bureaucracy is illegal). The guy was a dirtbag liar who was potentially dangerous, but is that grounds for summary execution without trial?
I watched as they pumped flammable gas into his house and feigned surprise that it caught on fire and burned to the ground. I saw the extended fire hoses that were not allowed to put water on the fire. The firemen were only allowed to put water on neighboring houses, they weren't allowed to swing the boom around to hit the perp's house with water.
The remains of the house were bulldozed under within hours. They made sure the house fire burned until it burned itself out, the better to hide whatever evidence was present. The government didn't see a reason to collect material evidence or conduct a formal investigation. They just bulldozed the remains and wrote it off as a psycho committing suicide after refusing to cooperate with the cops. There was plenty of sniping by the general public until Sept. 11th, which could have been prevented if the FBI and ATF weren't so busy declaring war on Americans that they considered radical.
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They pulled Waco and Ruby Ridge off successfuly in one sense. To this day the government, including Bush, has held nobody accountable and none of the primary culprits have paid any serious penalty. What put and end to more of it was the OKC bombing which, although it is not acknowleged, was in retaliation for Waco. The presence of unknown day care centers in the government headquarters created a public relations disaster that occluded everything else, including the reason for the bombing.
After he'd been shooting at them, and after they lobbed tear gas canisters into the house.
His crime: owning illegal guns (by California's definition, which means that almost anything but a pea shooter that hasn't been registered through several different layers of bureaucracy is illegal).
Specifically, he was a convicted felon owning guns, impersonating a US Marshal, and threatening his neighbors. Let's not skip the nagging details.
The guy was a dirtbag liar who was potentially dangerous, but is that grounds for summary execution without trial?
I see I have a member of the James Beck fan club.
Your due process rights require you to actually submit to the due process in question, instead of shooting at the people involved in said due process. Until that time, whatever lethal force they employ against you is known as "self-defense."
Did Mr. Beck have grounds for capping off rounds at LA Sherriffs and BATF personnel attempting to serve a valid warrant? Or did you perchance forget that little detail?
I watched as they pumped flammable gas into his house and feigned surprise that it caught on fire and burned to the ground.
It's an occupational hazard with tear gas, but it's not a certainty. And ol' James Beck could've just come out with his hands up, and avoided that outcome. But you're ignoring that little detail.
I saw the extended fire hoses that were not allowed to put water on the fire.
Because the firemen were A BLOCK AWAY.
The LA County Fire Department's attitude is that if you shoot at the cops and get your a$$ lit on fire, YOU can f***ing well put it out yourself, they are NOT going to risk their necks over someone who likes to shoot at the cops--all too often, the shooter also likes to shoot at firemen, too. Seems that the rioters in South Central during 1992 tended to shoot at the firemen--FROM INSIDE BURNING BUILDINGS, NO LESS.
The firemen were only allowed to put water on neighboring houses, they weren't allowed to swing the boom around to hit the perp's house with water.
Please get this straight. They didn't WANT to go in close to put out the fire. They opted to spend their efforts saving the houses of people who were NOT actively shooting at the cops.
The remains of the house were bulldozed under within hours.
Gosh, I guess you missed your opportunity to worship at the Shrine of St. James Beck the Ignited.
They made sure the house fire burned until it burned itself out, the better to hide whatever evidence was present.
Now you're ASSUMING motives without proof, after ignoring previous facts.
But you don't have an agenda, do you?
The government didn't see a reason to collect material evidence or conduct a formal investigation.
BATF serves warrant on Beck, Beck shoots at BATF and Sherriffs, refuses to surrender after killing a sherriff's deputy, and dies in a fire.
Not much to investigate, is there?
They just bulldozed the remains and wrote it off as a psycho committing suicide after refusing to cooperate with the cops.
Change the end of that sentence to "shooting at the cops and killing a deputy responding to the emergency call."
There was plenty of sniping by the general public until Sept. 11th, which could have been prevented if the FBI and ATF weren't so busy declaring war on Americans that they considered radical.
Actually, among the vast majority of sane and sensible folk out here in CA, there wasn't much sniping at all.
If the cops and ATF were so interested in capturing the guy, as opposed to just killing him outright, why didn't they nab him outside of his house where it would be a lot easier to control the situation, instead of forcing a seige situation?
It's easy to write this off as a psycho who got what he deserved. It's not so easy to blow it off when they come for you because your neighbor got concerned when he saw you bringing your guns back to your house after a hunting trip or day at the shooting range (how many guns can you own before it's considered "stockpiling"?). Do you want a BATF or other government agency that is free to kill people at will because it's too much of a hassle to prosecute them?
So very well said!
The author made a mistake in that sentence. The context that follows it clears it up but it should have read -
"All for the price of a little security."
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Our motto here at camp: Kill them all and let God find his own.
First off, the autopsy verified that the deputy was shot at a descending angle, consistent with someone shooting from the second floor of Beck's house.
Secondly, even if the deputy WAS a victim of friendly fire, are you familiar with "felony murder?"
Your right to due process goes on hold when you shoot at the cops, and stays on hold until either (a) you reap what you sow, or (b) you drop your weapons and come out with your hands up.
Beck made his choice. Who are you to complain about him getting what he wanted?
Concur.
"What put and end to more of it was the OKC bombing which, although it is not acknowleged, was in retaliation for Waco."
Certainly OKC was in retaliation for Waco--how could anyone who reads/lived through it NOT know that. However, the earlier incidents stirred up such a hornets nest that OKC was not necessary, and in fact actually hurt the anti-statist movement by taking the pressure off the government and focussing it on the "militia" movement.
You are probably right that patriot gun owners won't go out and rescue the victims of midnight confiscation raids cutting down the JBT's with withering gunfire. But I don't think they will all be cowering in their basements either. Some will be kicked back in their Lazy Boy's watching a report on FoxNews that goes something like this:
"BATF agents were killed in a catastrophic explosion early this morning while conducting a raid on a suspected gun stockpiler. An investigation
has determined that the house had been unoccupied for some time.
Police are trying to determine the source of the anonymous tip that lead to the raid. Experts have determined that a low-tech device fueled by a relatively small quantity of blackpowder exploded after the team of agents had entered the residence. The house was leveled and everyone inside was killed instantly. ..."
And the fellow in his easy chair says to himself "Oh my, I wonder who could have done that? Tsk tsk tsk." After a few of those around the country the confiscators will start to get a little ancy about no-knock raids don't you think?
MOLON LABE
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