1992... The beginning:

23 years ago, the incident in which many many people learned of the perfidy and callousness of the ATF, US Marshals service and the FBI (especially the Hostage Rescue Team)...and how they would lie, cheat, bribe and blackmail people to do their bidding....and lie, cheat and cover up and shift blame when they were found out.

Yep, I am talking about the Ruby Ridge incident with Randy Weaver.

This is the incident that showcased the incompetence of the US Marshals service...How they played "Operator" and bumbled in nearly every aspect of their investigation....all while costing the US Taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars BEFORE the incident at Ruby Ridge..

This is the incident where we learned about  FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi,...and his (ahem) Marksmanship....Wherein his name became an epithet after he killed Vicki Weaver under hastily modified Rules of Engagement for the HRT team....essentially an order to kill any of the Weaver party on sight.

It was this incident which highlighted the failures of management of the FBI, the ATF, the US Marshals service, and relative un-accountability of the agents employed in those agencies...and the behavior that one would expect of some men with a great deal of authority and essentially zero oversight or accountability.....and the desire to protect their fellow agents and never question their allegations....No one in any of those agencies was punished for their role in this asinine incident......one that began on lies, escalated because of a cover up and incompetence, and resulted in deaths of members of the Weaver party and a US Marshall....... FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi was protected by his agency (see manslaughter charge section) and essentially allowed to go free after committing murder.....

If you take the time to learn the facts (and the Wikipedia article has it fairly straight), you can understand why our founding fathers warned us against governments.....and why they put the First Amendment  first (so we could show, talk about, and explain what the government is doing) and gave us the Second Amendment (so we could fight back and protect the First).

It is said that this was the first of several incidents that gave rise to the "Militia" movement (and a great deal of mistrust of the government).... Perhaps it is. But had this incident not happened, the agencies involved would have had ample opportunity to find other ways to step in it not too far in the future......