For McVeigh, the siege constituted a federal assault on gun rights: “He regarded guns as instruments of freedom and any attempt to regulate them, especially by the federal government, as a form of oppression,” Toobin writes. One bore the slogan: “A MAN WITHOUT A GUN IS NOT A CITIZEN.” McVeigh left Waco after a few days, but was preparing to return and make some kind of stand against the feds when the siege ended with the fiery destruction of the compound, leaving 82 Branch Davidians dead. The insurrectionists, Toobin writes, were McVeigh’s “ideological successors”:the obsession with gun rights; the perceived approval of the Founding Fathers; and the belief in the value and power of violence. “Timothy McVeigh’s legacy became clearest during Trump’s campaign and presidency,” Toobin writes. “If Hanger had stopped McVeigh under the new law,” Toobin writes, “he could not have arrested him.

Source: CNN May 17, 2023 19:27 UTC