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Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
But are you suggesting that the Branch Davidians were wholly without fault?
They did buy guns illegally (if what I'ave heard is true).
They did practice child and sexual abuse. I've seen "survivors" openly admit such.
They did refuse to come out peacefully.
What happened was a farce, but the people holed up in that compound were criminal, religious fundamentalist (there's a word you for you!) crazies... and several innocents who were apparently kept there against their will.
Surely you're not defending them? I say, by all means criticise the FBI et al for messing up, but don't excuse what happened in that compound.
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You bet your ass I'm defending them. Why? Because Law Enforcement agencies are NOT supposed to be judge, jury, and executioners. That's EXACTLY what ATF and HRT did. you've heard of the legal concept of "innocent until proven guilty", right? Did they buy illegal guns? That's unknown, because the guns in question were destroyed in the fire. Was the gun law that they supposedly violated even Constitutional? Currently, that's debatable, since a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law (Title 27, §922(o)) down as unconstitutional on Interstate Commerce Clause grounds in U.S. v. Stewart, and the issue hasn't yet been resolved. It's a classic circuit split.
Did they commit sexual abuse of children? Again, we're at the "innocent until proven guilty" part of our justice system. No Davidian, to the best of my knowledge, was EVER convicted of sexually abusing a child. And you get to the point of "Why was BATF, a Federal agency, enforcing a STATE law, that they had no jurisdiction over?"
Did they refuse to come out? Absolutely. The first person to die in the raid was one of Koresh's daughters. She was shot as an unarmed Koresh answered the door. The bullet came from an ATF gun, went through her, and wounded Koresh, who was holding the baby in his arms. Gee....shooting an unarmed person with a baby in their arms....why does that sound familiar? If you answered the door at your house, and somebody shot you with a machinegun as soon as they saw you, would your family come out to get machinegunned too?
Five surviving Davidians were tried on murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges. They were acquitted, and found guilty of voluntary manslaughter charges instead.
I don't care if they were sacrificing virgins in the church to Ba'al on an hourly basis. That's irrelevant. Law enforcement agencies are NOT NOT NOT supposed to act as judge, jury, and executioners.