A Different take on the Branch Davidian incident

Great Debates
21

Joe_Cool wrote:

Unfortunately, it guarantees no such thing. All it guarantees is that Federal Courts have the option of throwing out a law or rendering a verdict against the government if they happen to feel that that particular law or government action violated the Constitution.

And if the Federal courts do decide to do such a thing, and the decision is immensely unpopular, that document guarantees us that the Congress and the State Legislatures can band together to amend it.

Right now, the Federal courts are of the opinion that the Second Amendment doesn’t restrict State lawmaking powers, doesn’t apply to arms that a well-regulated militia wouldn’t have, and doesn’t protect your right to transfer ownership or possession of arms. I hate to say it, but if the Supreme Court did reverse these rulings, and declared that the 2nd Amendment prohibits state and local governments from passing laws against the sale of nuclear bazookas, the Constitution would get amended so fast it would make your head spin.

22

I just have a big problem with a Christian Minister, preaching a peace based religion, finding it necessary to own a license to buy and sell killing devices with. Plus one who stockpiled them to use to kill anyone who opposed his form of religion.

I don’t like cults. We seem not to learn from Manson nor that bunch of nuts who released nerve gas in the subway in Japan. You get these cults who practice brainwashing, using both mental and dietary methods, those who prevent members from leaving and those who ‘treat’ their own sick members like the MacPhearson woman and the Scientologists, until they messily expire. (Why no one went to jail over that, I have no idea.)

Then you have the cults which hang around the desert and are harmless, or like the Hari Krishna, who mildly annoy. Those are fine. I’ve not heard of a Hari Krishna packing an Uzi or an M-16.

We have laws designed to protect us from ourselves because, in general, we are assholes. We’ll stand on our right to own arms, any arms until we get blown apart by some nut who agrees and just had to test out his new Mark 5, repeating guided missile launcher. Bought for ‘entertainment’ use, you know. Plus we’ll go down fighting to defend the rights of the paranoid, anti-everything neighbors in their bunker to own arms as they lob grenades into our coffee and beer because they don’t like us either.

If you let some screwball nest get out of hand, then there are a dozen more nests who are watching, who will decide that they can go further. Like that guy who refused to pay taxes, claiming his land was sovereign territory, went to jail, came out and refused to pay and started killing the people who set foot on his land to collect.

Hitler enthralled a nation of people just right for the picking and look what happened. At any one time, we probably have a few dozen nuts like Koresh was or worse, lurking around, gathering his flock of morons, preaching his distorted poison, waiting to get enough power to strike.

If one gets powerful enough, who will defend us? You? Naw! You’ll be thumping the drum to promote their right to free speech and to bear arms and to accumulate enough weaponry to give the military a run for their money.

I guess that leaves it up to the law, doesn’t it? I don’t care if they act with violence if doing so will keep my loved ones safe from the predators out there.

Besides, if Koresh had obeyed the ATFs request to enter and search in the first place, or paid his taxes, or chose to go through lawyers, the disaster never would have happened. It might have helped some if he had not scared the crap out of his neighbors also.

Koresh was looking for a fight. He was determined to go out in a blaze of glory and take as many of those whom he had power over with him.

Like that idiot did in Africa, in one of the first mass suicides ever known under the name of religion, including forcing those reluctant to die to drink the poisoned coolaid.

23

Couple of things.
A) just because you claim to be a christian doesn’t make you one. I can stand in a garage all day claiming to be a car, but it doesn’t make me one.

B) No less than Jesus himself told his disciples to arm themselves.

C) He was also an American, and tracer’s (more or less correct, but that’s another debate! ;)) comments aside, owning as many guns as he likes is legal, provided they are purchased legally and not used in a crime.

D) Uh, stockpiled them to kill anyone who opposed his form of religion??? What color is the sky on your planet? You make it sound like Koresh and his followers were an army stalking around texas massacring people who didn’t agree with them. Well, it seems you have him mixed up with Janet Reno and the BATF.

E) You don’t have to like cults. You don’t have to like anybody. But guess what? Too bad. It’s called the 1st Amendment, placed first in the Bill of Rights to signify that they considered Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press, and Assembly to be the most important part of a free society.

Deal with it.

24

jmullaney

Do you think that all books that are 2000 years old are worthless and false. Hmm, we should burn all of them then.

25

Joe_Cool

I am dealing with it. I support the ATF’s actions. Funny, I don’t know of any Christian churches within 3 cities of me where they preach accumulating arms and don’t know of any minister who is a gun dealer or who has a dealer’s license.

In fact, most, if not all religions, will freely admit the law into their buildings of the law displays a search warrant. A person may claim sanctuary within a church if the minister agrees but if a church has nothing to hide, few will deny the law access. Koresh had plenty to hide. Plus he declared himself and his property above the law of the land.

No way bud. If the average citizen has to obeys the laws designated for the good of all, so did he. In my personal opinion, he was a disease, corrupting his mindless followers, like Manson did. He was less than an animal, preying on the weaknesses of the gullible to satisfy his own desires.

We have freedom of speech and we also have the liable suites and slander laws. When one person starts abusing those freedoms at the cost of others, then it is time for the designated public protectors to enter. Religion is always a great way to sucker the weak of mind and spirit into doing what you want and religion can be corrupted.

I don’t like wolves running among sheep. I prefer that they be taken out before they start gutting the flock and I, for one, would have been happy to have Manson put to sleep instead of filing frivolous and wacko lawsuits, writing his inanities to idiots who idolize him, going on the Internet and showing up for parole now and then. Had Koresh been taken alive, he would still be spreading his insanity from prison.

Besides, the ATF had no knowledge that the egomaniac had booby trapped the whole place to kill his own people if the battle started to be lost.

You kill a mad dog. You don’t let it spread it’s madness.

Koresh was a mad dog.

It’s our freedoms now which equip criminals with Teflon coated bullets, automatic weapons, sound suppressors, and exotic ammunition designed only to kill with as much damage as possible. Perhaps it is time to rethink some of these freedoms.

The only thing you can’t own in America is a nuclear bomb. I’m willing to bet a dollar that somewhere, someone has already built a home made nuclear device, but hasn’t got the radioactives it needs. I’m willing to bet another dollar that he’s looking for a way to get them.

BTW, friends of mine are in law enforcement. Our rights means they have to go out on patrol each day equipped with bullet proof vests and they know that there are bullets out there that will penetrate them. They also know that in the occasional local gun and knife show, one may buy a legal Tech 9. Across the room, for a few extra bucks, one may buy the instructions on how to make them fully automatic. That seller sends you to another who will sell you a small bag of ‘repair parts’, which include the pieces needed to complete the alteration.

All legal. Across the room, another guy will sell you plastic bags of brand new 9 mm ammunition, as much as you want and has extra clips that also fit the Tech 9.

All this with armed police officers standing guard all over the place and checking incoming and outgoing weapons to make sure they’re empty and secured.

26

Joe_Cool,

I disagree with your intrepretation of Luke 22:36.

"
22:35
And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.

22:36
Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

Jesus is warning that a time of trouble is approaching. He is speaking of what the populace is likely to do, not telling his disciples to arm up. To do so would contrasict his actions at the time of his arrest by the Romans when he admonished his disciples for struggleing with the guards and healed one of the guards that was wounded in the struggle. The english translation of the Bible seems to lend itself towards misinterpretation.