It was just another in a long line of examples that certain elements within the government thought needed to be made. The Davidians had a lot of guns, so a bunch of kids had to be murdered. Randy Weaver had a shotgun that he altered, so his kids and wife had to die.
We should always remember that a mother holding her baby in her arms can look enough like a threat to have a sniper, who couldn't possibly be in danger, put a bullet in her from a nice safe distance.
And I'm firmly on the left end of the political spectrum, not a "Right-Wing Gun Nut." Truth is truth, to hell with idealogy.
That's not what happened. Agents of the USG tried to get Weaver to inform on his white supremacist neighbors and he refused. They tried to sell him a sawed off shotgun through undercover agents, and when he handled it, they had his prints on it, and charged him.
This all came out in the lawsuit that he won.
He never broke the law.
The government did.
Thanks for setting me straight. It's pretty amazing that the actual truth only makes everything else only slightly more disgusting.