Another major school shooting today ... Newtown, Conn

And that worked out really well for McVeigh. He certainly overthrew the US government.

It's really sad that a thread that started over a school shooting where 20 very innocent children were killed has degraded into each side threatening to shoot at each other. Yeah, we need more guns.

r are you arguing that McVeigh made your guns safe from the government?

Is it not strange that a FBI sniper can get away with killing an unarmed woman standing in a doorway with her infant in her arms and not be charge with any crime?

I do not know if the Waco people broke one law state or Federal before the raid happen and is it not strange that if a madman used an assault rifle to killed children we should ban all assault rifles however when the FBI used military main battle tanks to do the same thing that is good law enforcement.

The FBI killed children with tanks? Where did you hear that? You are completely out of touch with reality if you are going to make that claim.

The tanks didn't start the fires. FLIR showed the fires were started by Branch Davidians themselves.

Critics suggest that during the final raid the CS gas was injected into the building by armored vehicles in an unsafe manner, which could have started a fire. While two of the three fires were started well inside the building, away from where the CS gas was pumped in, survivor David Thibodeau claimed in a 1999 interview with Reason that damage to the building allowed the gas to spread, stating that "They started to break the walls, break the windows down, spread the CS gas out." The FBI had planted surveillance devices in the walls of the building which captured a number of conversations which the government claims are evidence the Davidians started the fire. The recordings were imperfect and many times difficult to understand, and the two transcriptions that were made had differences at many points. According to reporter Diana Fuentes, when the FBI’s April 19 tapes were played in court during the Branch Davidian trials, few people heard what the FBI audio expert claimed to hear; the tapes "were filled with noise, and voices only occasionally were discernible. [...] The words were faint; some courtroom observers said they heard it, some didn't."

The Branch Davidians had given ominous warnings involving fire on several occasions. This may or may not be indicative of the Davidians' future actions, but was the basis for the conclusion of Congress that the fire was started by the Davidians, "absent any other potential source of ignition." This was prior to the FBI admission that pyrotechnics were used, but a yearlong investigation by the Office of the Special Counsel after that admission nonetheless reached the same conclusion, and no further congressional investigations followed. During a 1999 deposition for civil suits by Davidian survivors, fire survivor Graeme Craddock was interviewed. He stated he saw some Davidians moving about a dozen one gallon cans of fuel so they would not be run over by armored vehicles, heard talk of pouring fuel outside the building, and, after the fire had started, something that sounded like "light the fire" from another individual. Professor Kenneth Newport's book The Branch Davidians of Waco attempts to prove that starting the fire themselves was pre-planned and consistent with the Branch Davidians' theology. He cites as evidence conversations the FBI recorded during the siege, testimonials of survivors Clive Doyle and Graeme Craddock, and the buying of diesel fuel one month before the start of the siege.

Attorney General Reno had specifically directed that no pyrotechnic devices be used in the assault. Between 1993 and 1999, FBI spokesmen denied (even under oath) the use of any sort of pyrotechnic devices during the assault; however, pyrotechnic Flite-Rite CS gas grenades had been found in the rubble immediately following the fire. In 1999, FBI spokesmen were forced to admit that they had used the grenades, however they claimed that these devices, which dispense CS gas through an internal burning process, had been used during an early morning attempt to penetrate a covered, water-filled construction pit 40 yards away, and were not fired into the building itself. According to FBI claims, the fires started approximately three hours after the grenades had been fired. When the FBI's documents were turned over to Congress for an investigation in 1994, the page listing the use of the pyrotechnic devices was missing. The failure for six years to disclose the use of pyrotechnics despite her specific directive led Reno to demand an investigation. A senior FBI official told Newsweek that as many as 100 FBI agents had known about the use of pyrotechnics, but no one spoke up until 1999. On May 12, less than a month after the incident, Texas state authorities bulldozed the site, rendering further gathering of forensic evidence impossible.

A large concentration of bodies, weapons and ammunition were found in the bunker. The arson report assumes that many of the occupants were either denied escape from within or refused to leave until escape was not an option. The arson report also mentions that the structural debris from the breaching operations on the west end of the building could have blocked a possible escape route through the tunnel system. An independent investigation, by two experts from the University of Maryland's Department of Fire Protection Engineering, concluded that the compound residents had sufficient time to escape the fire, if they had so desired.

Alan A. Stone wrote:

The tactical arm of federal law enforcement may conventionally think of the other side as a band of criminals or as a military force or, generically, as the aggressor. But the Branch Davidians were an unconventional group in an exalted, disturbed, and desperate state of mind. They were devoted to David Koresh as the Lamb of God. They were willing to die defending themselves in an apocalyptic ending and, in the alternative, to kill themselves and their children. However, these were neither psychiatrically depressed, suicidal people nor cold-blooded killers. They were ready to risk death as a test of their faith. The psychology of such behavior - together with its religious significance for the Branch Davidians - was mistakenly evaluated if, not simply ignored, by those responsible for the FBI strategy of "tightening the noose." The overwhelming show of force was not working in the way the tacticians supposed. It did not provoke the Branch Davidians to surrender, but it may have provoked David Koresh to order the mass-suicide.”

The FBI received contradictory reports on the possibility of Koresh's suicide and was not sure about whether he would commit suicide. The evidence made them believe that there was no possibility of mass suicide, with Koresh and Schneider repeatedly denying to the negotiators that they had plans to commit mass suicide, and people leaving the compound saying that they had seen no preparations for such a thing. There was a possibility that some of his followers would follow Koresh if he committed suicide. According to Alan A. Stone's report, during the siege the FBI used an incorrect psychiatric perspective to evaluate Davidians' responses, which caused them to over-rely on Koresh's statements that they would not commit suicide. According to Stone, this misevaluation caused the FBI to not make the pertinent questions to Koresh and to others on the compound about whether they were planning a mass suicide. A more pertinent question would have been "What will you do if we tighten the noose around the compound in a show of overwhelming power, and using CS gas, force you to come out?"

Autopsies of the dead revealed that some women and children found beneath a fallen concrete wall of a storage room died of skull injuries. Photographs taken after the fire show that the M728 CEV that penetrated the building while injecting CS gas did not come close enough to cause the collapse, which was more likely the result of the fire; photographs show signs of spalling on the concrete, which suggests that it was damaged by the intense heat. Autopsy photographs of other children locked in what appear to be spasmic death poses are consistent with cyanide poisoning, one of the results produced by burning CS gas. The DOJ report indicated that only one body had traces of benzene, one of the components of solvent-dispersed CS gas, but that the gas insertions had finished nearly one hour before the fire started, and that it was enough time for solvents to dissipate from the bodies of the Davidians that had inhaled the tear gas. Autopsy records also indicate that at least 20 Davidians were shot, including five children under the age of 14. Three-year-old Dayland Gent was stabbed in the chest. The medical examiner who performed the autopsies believed these deaths were mercy killings by Davidians trapped in the fire with no escape. The expert retained by the Office of Special Counsel concluded that many of the gunshot wounds "support self-destruction either by overt suicide, consensual execution (suicide by proxy), or less likely, forced execution.

BULLSHIT and I mean bullshit.............between the tanks knocking down walls and the tear gas containers that have a history of starting fires and the dry woods of the compound it was a fire waiting to be set.