Ruby Ridge Archives -

Would There Have Been Ruby Ridge Without The NFA?

Thursday marked the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the siege of the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge (Idaho). As most readers know, Randy Weaver had been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act for selling shotguns with less than the mandated minimum length.

This leads to the headline question of whether there would have been a Ruby Ridge if there had been no NFA.

Yes and no.

Without the NFA and its prohibition on untaxed shortened shotguns, the original charges against Weaver would not have existed and the US Marshals Service would have had no reason to attempt to apprehend Weaver for missing his court date. That said, given the many attempts to entrap Weaver so he would be forced to be an informant against Aryan Nation and other white supremacists in Idaho, the Feds would have found something.

I don’t want to go into much about the history of these groups nor of the role of Federal law enforcement in their investigation and prosecution. Suffice it to say, agencies like the FBI and the BATFE were actively investigating these groups in Idaho, used undercover agents, and sought to entrap those who could provide more information on them. Randy Weaver was one such an individual and eventually was arrested for a violation of the NFA for selling two shotguns to an undercover agent who had befriended him in an attempt to gain information. In the later Federal trial after the siege, Weaver was acquitted of all charges except for the failure to appear for his court date. A later wrongful death lawsuit ended with an out of court settlement to the remaining Weaver family members for $3.1 million. This was for the deaths of Vicki and Sammy Weaver.

With this as background and without trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist, getting rid of the most onerous parts of the NFA will not stop the Deep State. That said, I think both the lawsuits against the NFA have legs. The latter of the two, Brown v. ATF, brought by a coalition of the NRA, Second Amendment Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition, and the American Suppressor Association, appears to me to be the one with the most chance of success as it covers both the tax issue and the historical issues of gun control. We shall see.

A Tale Of Two Women Murdered

29 years ago today, a mother holding holding a baby was murdered by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Her name was Vicki Weaver. While charges were dismissed against Horiuchi based upon “federal supremacy”, the US government eventually paid out $3 million to settle a wrongful death suit. Then FBI Director Louis Freeh disciplined 12 agents over the Ruby Ridge standoff but Horiuchi was not one of them. He contended that Horiuchi had acted appropriately.

James Bovard has a series of stories from over the years on the Ruby Ridge standoff and murder.

Lest we forget, the whole mess was started by our friends at the BATFE who alleged that Randy Weaver, Vicki’s husband, sold two sawed-off shotguns to an informant in violation of the NFA.

Fast forward to January 6, 2021. A lieutenant with the Capitol Police shot an unarmed Ashli Babbitt during the so-called “capitol insurrection”. An insurrection implies a coordinated attack. The FBI just released information that there was scant evidence that it was a coordinated effort to overturn the election results.

Yesterday, that unnamed officer was officially exonerated for killing Babbitt. The Department of Justice had already said they would not be bringing charges.

Law professor Jonathan Turley does not agree that the officer involved met any standard for shooting an unarmed person. He is also critical of fellow law professors for essentially considered Babbitt fair game as she was part of the January 6th “insurrection” (that wasn’t).

As Piers Morgan notes, if you or I had been the one who shot a US Capitol Police officer, we would be named. Transparency in government demands that that this officer be likewise named. Heck, we know about Lon Horiuchi but not this guy.

You can argue whether Ashli Babbitt was murdered or not. At the least in my opinion, it was manslaughter and the officer doing the shooting should be held accountable just like many other law enforcement officers have been held accountable over the last two years.

The bottom line is that the government gets away with doing it to you but you don’t get away from doing it to government. I am reminded of Dave Hardy’s excellent book “I’m from the Government and I’m Here to Kill You: The True Human Cost of Official Negligence”. The book covers everything from the Texas City ammo ship explosion to Operation Fast and Furious. In no case was any Federal official ever charged. Indeed, future Chief Justice Warren Burger argued for the DOJ that no compensation should be paid to the families of the 600 killed in the Texas City explosion.