Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City Bombing Research Assignment

Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City Bombing
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Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City Bombing
Perhaps the right-wing extremists began and had intensified following some precedent city and domestic bombings such as the Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma. The manner in which the federal government security agencies responded these incidents, in which constitutional rights of women and children were violated, might have caused anti-government wars especially by extremists. In the Ruby Ridge case of August 21, 1992, Randy Weaver who was a white separatist was being targeted by the federal government under the allegations that he sold guns to drug traffickers and failed to report to the court as instructed. The US Marshals and the FBI invaded his home in different occasions killing his wife and 14-year-old son. Waco bombing of 1993 began when the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) invaded a Mount Carmel compound (inhabited by Branch Davidians) with over 80 armed agents to execute a search and arrest warrant Branch Davidians led by David Koresh after allegations that they possessed illegal weapons. The raid saw both parties open fire against one another resulting in casualties of four agents and six Davidians. A 51-day standoff began. On April 19, 1993, the FBI and the army rammed in the compound and fired tear gas into the building and after sometimes fire broke out. 86 men, women and children died. On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people while hundreds were injured. The bombing was executed by an anti-government militant, Timothy McVeigh. This paper examines the similarities and differences involved in these three incidents, how they are related, constitutional rights involved in each case and possible ways of preventing such domestic occurrences in future.
Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma incidents are similar to one another in one way or another. All the three incidents involved the right activists taking a stand against the federal government prosecution. Randy Weaver, the main target in Ruby Ridge gunfight, was against the government's prosecution for weapon charges (Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, & Parkin, 2014). Davidians, led by David Koresh, were against the government's BATF agents who wanted to seize their compound for allegations of illegal firearms. During the standoff at Waco, McVeigh (a right-wing activist) attempted to make his way to Mount Carmel compound but was denied access (Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, & Parkin, 2014). The Oklahoma bombing was executed by McVeigh, a well-known right-wing activist.
Also, Ruby Ridge, Waco and Oklahoma cases all resulted in the loss of innocent lives. During the Ruby Ridge attack, a fourteen-year-old child led alongside his mother who had a young baby (Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald, & Parkin, 2014). The two killed were innocent and fall under the category of children and women who should be protected by law against war. During Waco bombing, so many innocent children and women were consumed in the fire that broke up as a result of the assault between the army and the Davidians. It is believed that out of the 86 casualti...