As for Weaver specifically training his son to shoot federal agents… Do you have any proof of this assertion? Or is the fact that is son seemed capable of using a weapon de facto proof of this in your eyes?
If so, then I guess my grandfather was guilty of teaching me how to kill federal officers, because when I was young he bought me a rifle and taught me how to use it. Thanks, Grandpa.
Y’know, I sometimes think that the major disconnect going on here has to do with people raised in urban environments vs people raised in rural/farming environments. When people say things like, “There is no use for a gun other than to kill people”, those of us who know better just shake our heads in wonder. I grew up using a rifle and handgun as a tool, just like my shovel and hammer. We used them to kill animals for butchering, to get rid of gophers so that our horses wouldn’t break their legs in gopher holes, to get rid of muskrats and beavers so that they wouldn’t dam up a stream and flood our crops, etc. And because guns were part of the culture, we also learned to appreciate nice ones, so we’d sometimes collect them, enter shooting competitions, gun shows, etc. Just like, say, suburban people own nice cars and rich ones sometimes even collect them. Tell Jay Leno that the only thing cars are good for is transportation. He’s got a warehouse full of 'em, just because loves to look at them, tinker with them, and occasionally take them out for a pleasure drive. Exactly the way gun people collect them, tinker with them, and sometimes take them to the range for a shoot.
And yes, if someone in our neighborhood was good enough with metal working to be able to modify guns, we’d sometimes take a gun in to get worked on. Shotguns are particularly useful for getting rid of vermin, and I’ve seen many a cut-down shotgun in my day (it makes it easier to store them in the cab of the truck and retrieve them. It also can make them safer to handle, because a long barrel can be a pain and get caught up in things. And it makes them even more useful for vermin dispatching, because a shorter barrel means a wider spread at close ranges). We probably broke all kinds of federal firearms laws, but we wouldn’t have known because it just wouldn’t have occured to us that anyone could care how long the barrels were on our shotguns.
But you city folks hear about a guy who cut down the barrel of a shotgun, and your automatic assumption is that he must have been a nefarious gun dealer supplying arms to hate groups. And anyone in the ‘gun culture’ is automatically tried and convicted by many people who think of guns only as those evil things that gangs and robbers carry.
I’ve known lots of people like Randy Weaver, because I grew up in a Mennonite commnity that had its share of odd ducks that rejected most of society and lived by themselves off in the bush. Our attitude was, “Nice folks, I guess. Pretty strange, but they make a great marmelade. Let’s go visit and buy some.” In other words, their personal beliefs, prejudices, etc., just made no impact. We just didn’t judge people by the way they lived, as long as they were good to us. But if someone reneged on his debts, or was known to be lazy, that was enough to get him shunned from the community. Those were the values. If we found out someone was a racist, we’d just make sure to steer the conversation around that to avoid unpleasantness.
On the other hand, if we saw someone actually act in a racist fashion, he’d catch hell for it. I remember my grandfather dressing down a stranger in the street once because the guy hurled a racial epithet at someone. But if they kept it to themselves, it was live and let live.
Perhaps that’s why I’m so appalled that some of you seem to be taking the attitude of, “Hey, if he didn’t want to have federal agents all over him shooting at his family, he shouldn’t have rejected society and lived off in the bush. He shouldn’t have taught his kid to shoot, and he shouldn’t have cut down that barrel. He brought it on himself.”
Hell, the Unabomber got more sympathy, and he’s a murderer.
