The Problems With Using A Gun For Self Defense

I do not think that the Branch Davidian massacre had anything to do with Ruby Ridge, and possibly, not that much with the OKC bombing. (The stories around that one leave a lot for speculation,so better done in the conspiracy thread.)
Ruby Ridge was a case of the government setting Randy Weaver up, pure and simple. They wanted him to be a snitch for them against the Aryans, and he refused to do it. They charged him with having an illegal rifle (shotgun?), and the charges were falsified. Then they sent him the wrong day to come to court, so he missed the court appearance and they issued a FTA warrant.
The agents shot his son, and shot the boy in the back when he was trying to get his dog and run away.
They shot Randy's wife when she was standing in the front door and holding their baby. If they had not sent the armed robot into the yard, Randy would probably have come out sooner; but maybe not after they killed his wife.
It was good that Bo Gritz was there, or Randy and the others would have probably ended up dead, too.

The local law enforcement in Boundary county , Idaho, knew Randy and his family; but the feds took over and the local Sheriff and deputies were not even allowed to do much of anything to help save Randy. There are a lot of people that live out in the hills in Northern Idaho, just like the Weavers did; and most of them just want to be left alone to live their lives, the same as Randy and his family did.
There is a video , I will see if I can find it, and it shows the local people that were all over the roads out there in support of the Weavers.
(I don't think the one that I saw before is on the internet now; it has been a long time since this happened; but this one looks like it shows the story from the Weaver's perspective. )

 

I agree. The OKC bombers may have been influenced by the governmental atrocities committed at Ruby Ridge and Waco, but the Davidians were doing their own thing. They had no illegal weapons or connections with any militia. Had the federal concerns truly been about the children, that would not have been a federal matter. Had they really been concerned about the children, they could have taken them while they were in school, as most of the Branch Davidian children attended public school. Had they knocked on the door with their warrant, they would likely have been invited in, as had been the case when the Sheriff's Department investigated complaints not long before. If David Koresh were their object, they could have arrested him while he jogged along the road or ate breakfast in a restaurant, as he did nearly every morning.

Instead, they chose to go in, without warning, and in the dead of night on a Sunday, the one day of the week when they could be assured that all of the children would be present. It is likely true that the Davidians were paranoid of the federal government. In hindsight, they would have been fools not to be. But when someone fires tear gas into the building in the dead of night, breaks an upstairs window and attempts to enter with guns drawn, paranoia is a reasonable reaction.

State and local police in Texas felt the same way about Waco. Had a local agency handled it, there would have likely been no deaths.

 

Here's another theory on the biker shootings.

 

Exactly, Ken ! !
That is the article that I read first; but thought it might be a little too controversial. When I found the link at the bottom of the article for the rifle association report, I linked to that one instead. They are all fitting in together, and this article makes the story of only law enforcement doing the shooting make sense.
It explains why no one besides bikers was accidentally shot, or even shot at, and also why the police were tipped off that the bikers were going to be there and were on the roof of the restaurant waiting for them.
The article you posted explains the "why" part.

 

Here is a perspective that might be a bit more reputable, as far as being well known and generally accurate -- Breitbart.com.

Twin Peaks Biker: Waco PD Put Everyone in Harms Way, Not the Bikers

It is hard to know just what actually happened, since no one who would ordinarily be involved in disseminating information has had a track record for honesty lately.

 

There are more problems than this, I am sure, but one immediate problem that I see with having a gun for self-defense is that court rulings have repeatedly made this a dangerous endeavor.

First of all, when and if a gun is ever going to be needed for self-defense in the case of a home invasion, by the nature of the crime, things are likely to happen very fast. The chances are that most gun owners will not be able to retrieve their weapons in usable condition in time to do any good, particularly given mandates, in some areas, to store guns in a locked safe or to make use of a trigger lock, or other such safety precautions, and to store them unloaded. The chances that you will be able to open your gun safe and load your gun in time to defend against a home invasion are pretty unlikely.

Another problem that shouldn't happen to an innocent person, but does, is that the police are often allowed no-knock warrants, and they do sometimes get the wrong address. Considerations of defending yourself against an intruder could be complicated by trying to figure out if the intruder is a dangerous cop or a dangerous criminal. In at least one case that I saw in a documentary, the police serving a warrant on the wrong address shot and killed a homeowner because he had a weapon. The shooting was found to have been justified. Although the family is likely to collect in a civil suit, that doesn't do the dead guy a whole lot of good.

Closer to home, in rural Medway, Maine, just a couple of towns away from Millinocket, the police were called to respond to loud noises. Apparently, a husband and wife had gotten into a loud argument. I didn't hear anything about domestic violence being involved, and I believe that a neighbor had called because she heard noises and wanted someone to check it out.

At any rate, this was a rural area, and not within the borders of a town with a police department, so it took quite a while for anyone to respond. I can't remember now whether it was the state police or sheriff's department who responded, but by the time they got there, the couple had gone to bed and were sound asleep when the knock on the door came.

Because they lived in a rural area, the man answered the door holding a rifle. There were no allegations that he had pointed it at anyone but the police shot him several times, killing him. That too was considered a justified shooting.

So if you can be legally shot to death if you respond to someone breaking into your house in the middle of the night or if you have a gun in your hand when you answer the door at 3:00 in the morning, then do you really have the right to use a gun for self-defense within your own home?

 

No responsible gun owner would do that, and those who would probably need to be locked up, anyhow.

 

What if the aggressor is a cop?