Hindsight from The New Gun Week July 14, 1995

Americans, Santa Claus and Faith in Government

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

	There has been a lot of public furor over the National Rifle
Association reference to "jackbooted thugs" as a metaphor for police
state tactics by government agents. But that phrase did not originate
with the NRA, nor does its use in a fund-raising letter mark the first
time anyone has complained about such tactics.

	Needless to say, not all federal agents are guilty of such
tactics or deserving of such opprobrium. But some clearly are, and
federal agencies have a long history of condoning, if not approving,
police policies and practices which are in violation of the
constitutional rights of American citizens.

	No one should be shocked that such Gestapo-like tactics occur.
And no one should be shocked that the NRA and other organizations
should register public and official complaints about such tactics. A
lot of people have been doing so for many years.  Without going
through a whole history of government law-enforcement abuse, it is
worthwhile reviewing some of these incidents, particularly with
respect to the reaction of average Americans who discover that their
government can be guilty of such behavior.

	Obviously, Americans have been turning a blind eye to such
actions, and apparently many do not see brutal tactics as excessive
when they believe a suspect is guilty of foul crimes, or motivated by
some seemingly foreign religion or unpopular philosophy.

	When some of their fellow Americans, most notably gunowners
concerned about the permanent wounding of Kenyon Ballew in Silver
Spring, MD, by agents of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division of
the IRS on a no-knock night raid on June 7, 1971, complained about
federal law enforcement abuses, it seems that few were paying
attention. Or, if they were, that they were blocking out such
allegations as some kind of wild ravings by paranoiacs.

	But while the public and the media can block out such charges
for a while, they cannot do so forever. Other organizations have
joined the call for an honest and independent hearing on many of these
charges. And despite official attempts to sweep the charges under the
rug, a series of joint House Subcommittee hearings will begin the
process of probing more recent complaints in mid-July. The hearings
are scheduled to begin with the notorious Waco case involving the 1993
raid, 51-day siege and final flaming assault of the Branch Davidians
at Mount Carmel Center. In all likelihood the Subcommittees will
proceed to an examination of the raid and siege at the Randy Weaver
home at Ruby Ridge, ID, and perhaps probe other incidents which have
occurred in other parts of the nation in recent years.

	The Waco case involves both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It may also involve
the Justice Department and the possible illegal use of military forces
and equipment against civilians.

	The Weaver case only deals with the BATF in a minor role, but
focuses on the US Marshals Service and the FBI.

	Other cases may lead to further scrutiny of additional federal
agencies. To a large extent this will depend on the amount of time,
staff and other resources which the House Subcommittees can devote to
their investigation.

	That the Subcommittees chaired by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL)
and Rep. Bill Zeliff (R-NH) are finally probing these complaints is
worthy of praise. So too are attempts by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) to
bring these issues before a Senate panel. That such hearings may rip
back a wall of official whitewash and allay the fears of government
harbored by millions of Americans is important. If the hearings only
help restore public confidence in their federal law enforcement
agencies, assure greater public cooperation with those agencies and
protect the lives of the courageous officers charged with enforcing
the laws, they will be worthwhile. If they also lead to reform and
greater professionalism in the administration of these agencies, to
their greater concern for Constitutional law and a reduction in
wasteful use of taxpayer dollars, as was the case in the recent bogus
raid by US Customs and BATF agents on the ammunition importer in San
Francisco, we will have made even greater strides.

	As an example of what kind of public reaction can be expected
from the hearings when the public is awakened to the darker side of
the federal law enforcement psyche, I would like to quote extensively
from an unusual interview of an alternate juror in the Weaver case
which was published in the June 24, 1993 Spokesman-Review of Spokane,
WA. That newspaper, while openly and consistently anti-gun, did a
remarkably able reporting job during the Weaver trial in federal court
in Boise, ID, probably because the raid and standoff at Ruby Ridge
took place within the newspaper's primary local circulation area. The
Spokesman-Review has also been one of the few newspapers in the
country which has termed official investigations a "whitewash," and
has consistently supported the call for an independent investigation.

	The newspaper's interview of Gena Hagerman, then a 34-year-old
medical assistant who heard all the testimony in the Weaver trial as
an alternate juror until dismissed by the court when the final jury
was charged, is enlightening. It shows how an American responds to the
startling revelation that her government is not always as good and
fair as she had always believed.

	"I felt like a little kid that finds out there is no Santa
Claus," Hagerman told reporter Dean Miller.

	"I found out what the FBI and the Marshal Service is all
about," she said. "I found out they were capable of doing things I
thought were not possible."

	Miller's Spokesman-Review report continued:

	"She ticked off examples: 'The cover-up, the discrepancies,
yelling to Vicki, "We had pancakes for breakfast, what did you have?"
after she was dead.' "

	Vicki was the wife of Randy Weaver who was shot by FBI sniper
Lon Horiuchi as she stood in the doorway of the Weaver cabin with her
child in her arms.

	Hagerman talked about the witnesses in the case and the fact
that the evidence indicated that the US Marshals fired the first shot
in the Aug. 21, 1992 encounter, killing Sam Weaver's dog, Striker.
That led to the shot fired by Kevin Harris which killed Marshal Bill
Degan, and the return fire which killed 13-year-old Sam Weaver.

	Of the encounter, Hagerman said in the interview: "I imagined
being out there in the woods and this guy popping up and shooting my
dog," she said. "The guy was scary."

	"I thought it was very tacky that they (the Marshals) couldn't
move that (dead) dog out of the way," she said. "It was like they had
a vendetta against a dumb animal and they killed it and ran over it 27
times to show it who was boss."

	Hagerman was not allowed to discuss other jurors and their
possible verdict in the interview just days before the final verdict
was reached. However, she did say that she would probably have found
Weaver guilty of failing to appear for a 1991 court date, but would
have acquitted him of the other charges, including murder, firearm
violations and conspiracy.

	A few days later the actual jurors returned exactly that kind
of verdict. Like Hagerman they had apparently had their dreams
shattered and their eyes opened when the facts, including the
testimony of key government witnesses, fit the defense's theory in the
case better than the prosecution's.

	After the survivors of the fiery final assault on the Mount
Carmel Center at Waco were tried, there were also reports of juror
unhappiness.

	In that case, too, the government failed to prove its major
charges of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy. Once again, the
government had not been able to get a jury to believe their theory of
events in a major case. The jury convicted the surviving Davidians of
relatively minor charges, and some, particularly the forewoman of that
jury, have since publicly expressed dismay that the judge imposed such
harsh sentences at Justice Department urging on relatively minor
charges.

	Perhaps we should refer to that as the first Waco jury. The
larger second jury composed of all Americans who listen attentively to
the facts which will unfold at the upcoming hearings may be similarly
awakened.

	President Clinton has tried to portray the government role at
Waco in a different light, saying that the Davidians killed government
agents, set fire to their own home and killed themselves and the women
and children.

	The facts don't seem to fit that scenario, just as they did
not fit the government version for the Weaver incident which took
place during the Bush Administration. The problem of federal law
enforcement abuses and overzealousness is not limited to one
administration or one party's control of the White House or Congress.
The problem is much bigger than that, because it goes to the very core
of the compact Americans have with their form of government.


*********************************************************


The New Gun Week is a weekly publication of the Second Amendment
Foundation (SAF).  Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President
and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may
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