I was offered a bridge if I believed the claim I posted:
Some surviving Davidians have claimed that any full-auto conversions
or attempts to arm and load grenades ocurred after the initial ATF
raid 28 Feb 1993 and while they were under siege by the FBI.
They claim before the raid, the weapons were legal.
I believe some of the surviving Davidians made that claim, or at
least that is what their lawyers say. I did not say I believed the
claim, just that the claim was made. I have this wild and crazy
belief that in the court of public opinion, as in a court of law,
fair play requires a look at both incriminatory
and excuplatory
evidence.
In building a timeline on the Waco incident--year, month, day,
who did what where--I have identified and deleted several
government cover-ups and baseless conspiracy theories.
On 30 Jul 1992 ATF agent David Aguilera was in the gun shop of
Henry McMahon of Hewitt Handguns inspecting the records of gun
sales to Vernon Howell aka David Koresh. McMahon got Howell on
the phone and Howell wanted to speak to Aguilera and to offer
to let the ATF come out and inspect the guns and paperwork.
Aguilera refused to take the phone and refused to accept this
offer. Later Howell complained about the ATF investigation to
the Sheriff's department.
Now, ATF had a list of gun parts, upper and lower AR receivers,
etc. that Howell and Fatta had bought from Sarco, Olympia,
Nesard and Sendra. How could Howell count on Aguilera not
accepting his offer to come out and do a compliance inspection
on the Mag Bag business inventory AND inspect the paperwork
on his personal collection, if there were full-auto weapons
there 30 July 1992?
Testing of ARs and AKs built by Fatta's Mag Bag business was
conducted with legal Hellfire switches at the Davidian's rifle
range and this was the source of complaints by neighbor Robert
Cervenka about machinegun fire at Mount Carmel Center (MCC).
In response to the complaints, the Davidians went to the Sheriff's
department and showed them the letter from BATF that the Hellfire
was a legal device.
You could speculate that the Hellfires were a cover for
machinegun testing, or speculate that any machinegun conversions
would be listed by the Mag Bag gunshop or its gun show operation
"Koresh Survival Goods" as having been sold. That would be
possible, but it is not provable, since apparently the records
were burned 19 Apr 1993.
Aguilera, or the ATF speaking for Aguilera, has given the excuse
for not accepting that 30 Jul 1992 offer as that: the Davidians
had stopped posting armed guards, and Aguilera did not want to
spook them into re-posting armed guards by coming out and inspecting
the guns and paperwork. Yet in the affidavit for search warrant,
25 Feb 1993, Aguilera gives as a reason to raid:
On January 8, 1993, I interviewed Marc Breault in Los Angeles,
California. He is an American citizen who lives in Australia with
his wife Elizabeth. He was once a member of the Branch Davidian
in Waco, Texas. He lived at the Mt. Carmel Center from early 1988
until September 1989. While there he participated in physical
training and firearms shooting exercises conducted by Howell. He
stood guard armed with a loaded weapon. Guard duty was maintained
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Those who stood guard duty were
instructed by Howell to "shoot to kill" anyone who attempted to
come through the entrance gate of the Mt. Carmel property.....
ATF agent Aguilera gives as a reason to raid on 1 Mar 1993 that,
up to Sept 1989, Howell had posted armed gaurds with orders to shoot
to kill. ATF agent Aguilera gives as a reason not to do an inspection
on 30 Aug 1992 that Howell had stopped posting armed guards.
If anyone can offer a rational explanation of THAT I will make
a downpayment on a bridge.
After the ATF turned down Howell's 30 July 1992 attempt to get a
compliance inspection instead of a raid, during 21-31 Aug 1992
the ATF, USMS and FBI carried out the siege on the Weaver Family
on Caribou Ridge on the Ruby Creek drainage outside Naples, ID.
Vernon Howell told people that he believed that "Ruby Ridge" was
a practice run for what was in store for the Davidians.
Even so, when the ATF posted agents as "college students" in a
house across the road from MCC, Howell took ATF agent Robert
Rodriguez under his wing and tried to explain to Robert that he
believed his guns were legal, and that he had a legal right to
keep and bear arms under both the US Bill of Rights and the
KJV Bible.
WHY THERE HAD BEEN ARMED GUARDS AT MOUNT CARMEL
Vernon Howell was tutored by Lois Roden, fourth prophet of the
Branch Davidian, to be her chosen succedsor, because she considered
her son George unworthy. When Lois fell ill, George ran the
Howell faction off the grounds at gun point, renamed Mount
Carmel Center (MCC) "Rodenville" and named himself the fifth
prophet. The Howell faction settled in Palestine, Texas.
On 20 Mar 1986 the New York headquarters of the Jaimacan Davidian
branch was burned: the Jamaican Davidians warned Howell that the
fire was arson by a Roden faction based in Maryland and that the
Howell faction was their next target.
George shot at a school bus on the county road he believed
contained children of the Howell faction; exhumed the casket
of Anna Hughes and challenged Howell to a resurrection contest;
wrote the Texas courts that if they favored Howell God would
visit AIDS and herpes on the judges; ax-murdered a rival
Davidian prophet Wayman Dale Adair; and ended up committed to
a state mental hospital in Vernon, Texas. (It appears Lois
was right about George. )
By March 1988 Vernon Howell had re-claimed possession of
"Rodenville" and changed its name back to Mount Carmel Center.
Howell discovered George had rented a cabin to some people
who ran a meth lab; Howell turned the names and the drug
lab over to the sheriff's department and later demolished
the cabin as hopelessly contaminated.
During 1988 and 1989 Howell posted armed guards 24/7 out of
fear of reprisal by the Roden faction or the meth makers
or both.
10 Jan 1993 four ATF agents posing as college students
rented a house across the road from MCC. The ATF maintained
surveillance from that house from 10 Jan to 28 Feb the
day of the raid. They reported that they saw no evidence of
armed guards posted at MCC 10 Jan-28 Feb.
Just as Green Beret Special Forces training at Ft. Hood
and Texas National Guard helicopters were authorized for
the ATF on the claim that there was a meth lab at MCC,
the warrant was justified on the claim that there were
armed guards at MCC.
-o- The meth lab cabin ceased to exist by 1988.
-o- The armed guard was discontinued well before 30 July 1992.
SCOTUS rulings have held that evidence for a warrant must be
fresher than six months old: you can not search or raid now
over the past history of an address.
As JAG Col Thomas Lujan pointed out in US Army War College
Publication
Parameters Autumn 1997:
While some lessons for America's military leaders from this
incident remain obscure, there are at least three that can be
derived from it. First, military decisionmakers cannot rely on
the assertions of other federal agencies. The BATF knew of the
requirement to establish a drug nexus in order to obtain needed
military support from JTF 6. Authoritative evidence conclusively
demonstrates that any precursor chemical or methamphetamine
connection at the Waco compound had occurred in 1987, fully six
years before the raid. It is probable that David Koresh was in
fact responsible for expelling the member involved in the
fledgling illegal drug activity, going so far as to report the
offender to police. The six-year lapse in these events clearly
attenuates the underlying rationale for illegal drug activity;
the BATF request nevertheless boldly asserted the needed nexus.
The raid was justified by lies and was unnecessary. When the
sheriff's department had problems with Howell, they called him
and he showed up with his lawyer at the courthouse. Howell
tried to offer the ATF the option of just coming out and looking
at the guns and paperwork. Instead, the ATF lied and people--agents
following orders and citizens under attack--died unnecessarily.
thats the way it looked to me.... 
