Some of us are still seething and will [b]never[/b] forget.  [pissed]

F&L37, you should get your information from somewhere other than where you are.  Randy Weaver went to a meeting or two of racist groups in the area.  He was not a member, and did not espouse their beliefs.  They were pretty much his only neighbors.  The Feral Gov.'t attempted to use him to infiltrate them, as they knew he was not part of them.  He refused.  The "illegal act" he committed was unintentional, depending upon who measured the shotgun bbl. length.  The crime was failure to pay the tax, if the bbl. was shorter than the minimum allowed w/o paying the tax.  Contrast that to shooting his 14 y/o son in the back as he fled--with a SMG.  Or shooting his unarmed wife in the face as she held her baby.  Now [b]those[/b] are crimes.  Crimes for which no one has been held accountable, except Degan, who had a law enforcement training center named in his "honor."  Will future LEO's (Federal) be "trained" to act like they did at RR?  [b]This[/b] is our fear/outrage.

Randy Weaver himself is no hero.  I have heard him espounse white separatist beliefs, and whether entrapped or not, he did agree to cut down a shotgun bbl to below legal length.  This mistake was compounded when he failed to show up for court.

However, this in [b]NO WAY[/b] justifies, excuses, or explains what the feds did to him and his family.  What they did is a crime and a damned shame, and the fact that they've gotten away with it is reprehensible.  

F&L37 is right in that Weaver is being unjustly portrayed as some kind of American hero, because he's not.  It's just that whatever wrongs he may have done were far, far overshadowed by what the government did to him.  Everyone else is right that we should never forget what happened at Ruby Ridge, because is shows the end result of unchecked power in the hands of the goverment.

You're missing the point--no one that I've seen wants to make RW into a "folk hero."  He is a victim--a true victim, not the liberal/leftist pseudo-victims much bally-hooed today.  You seem to be saying he had weird religious beliefs, therefore he "deserved" it or at least should be overlooked and not considered because of them.  If you think it can't happen to you, you haven't been paying attention.  He's not my "hero" but I loathe those who murdered his wife and child.  That's it for me--the murders, regardless of the events that precipitated them.  

actually, he cut the barrel to just over the legal lentgh, but the ATF had ensured that the stock was already cut off so that the overall lentgh ended up being a fraction of an inch under the legal  total overall lentgh for a shotgun. Hell I didn't even know there was an overall lentgh untill I read the deatils of this case. I knew what the legal barrel lentgh was, but ahd no clue there was an overall restriction.... did you?
Now no, 10 years from now when the anti gun forces are so powerfull and in charge that just posting here will make you an enemy and criminal in thier eyes.

It is not illegal to associate with any group so long as you yourself violate no laws. When we start condemming people to death because thier views are unpopular with us then we have signed our own death warrants as gun owners.

The government targeted the man because he had attentended a few meetings of a group they didn't like. They then pressured him for 2 years to commit an illegal act soley for the purpose of forcing him to work for them. He thought he was cutting above the legal limit but was unaware of the overall lentgh restriction. The government then changed his court date, didn't notify him, and swore an arrest warrant when he didn't show up. By this point I wouldn't trust them either.

The point here is that no matter what a person may beleive, he is an American and no American should be persecuted or targeted for nothing more than thier beliefs. Today people like you feel it is okay to target someone because they went into an unpopular church, whats next, target gunshow attendees.

And when those who enforce the laws think that a persons beliefs justify targeting them for stings, entrapment, and even thier death, we have lost this nation.

I just re-read my posts and can find nothing that suggested RW was "ignorant or did not know what the Arian Nations Church was all about."  Nice play on words with the "a avowed white separatist" crack though.  Some of us know the difference between a "white supremacist" and a "white separatist."  I said he was not part of the Aryan Nations.  He wasn't, as far as I know/have read.  If you have proof he was, please provide the link, or steer me in the right direction to enlighten myself.  Bottom line--even if he was, did he "deserve" to have this done to him?  Who else should be murdered by the government due to their church affiliation/beliefs?