30 Years Ago Today: Oklahoma City Bombing

Thirty years ago today, on April 19, 1995, what was reported to be a truck bomb, detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, OK, destroying the building and killing 168 people.

The bombing was allegedly retaliation for what federal law enforcement agencies had done at the Branch Davidian Church compound in Waco, TX, two years earlier.

The Waco siege, also known as the "Waco massacre," was a 51-day standoff between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the FBI, and the Branch Davidians, a religious group, at their compound near Waco, Texas, between February 28 and April 19, 1993.

The siege began when authorities, believing the Branch Davidians were stockpiling illegal weapons, attempted to execute search and arrest warrants. A firefight ensued, resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Davidians. 

The siege concluded on April 19, 1993, with the FBI launching a CS gas attack and a subsequent fire that resulted in the deaths of 76 Davidians.   As the Branch Davidian compound burned, local reports say the feds opened fire at anyone who tried to flee the burning building, thereby forcing people to stay inside and burn to death.  

According to news reports at the time, all the law enforcement actions undertaken by the feds in Waco, TX against the Branch Davidians, including burning them all to death, were planned and supervised from the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City.

As such, since the feds did what you see immediately above, to the Americans in Waco, TX,   OTHER Americans did what you see below, in retaliation to the federal government. The Alfred P. Murrah federal building went . . . .

From this:                                                                                   To This:

It's all quite simple, really:  When someone kills Americans, even if that someone is the government, then Americans kill back.  

Of course, there are the weak-minded who say "Violence never solved anything."   In this instance, however, it seems to have solved a lot: The federal government of the United States never again perpetrated an operation like Waco.

It's in our Blood

This approach to handling rogue government is in the blood of Americans.   In fact, 250 years ago TODAY, on April 19, 1775, Paul Revere made his historic ride shouting "The British are Coming! The British are coming" because the watchman, in the tower of the old North Church in Boston, placed signal lanterns in the main church tower, to alert colonial militiamen that the British had begin arriving.

Later this same day, Colonial militiamen massed on "the Green" at Lexington and Concord Massachusetts.

They confronted the British Army which was coming to seize their weapons.

At that confrontation "the shot heard round the world" was fired, as Colonials opened fire upon the British Army.

Thus began what became "The American Revolution"  250 years ago . . . . TODAY.

That's how Americans handle government when it goes too far.