2 years ago I wrote a piece on the 30th anniversary of the fiery end of the Waco siege, an event that to this day still has a polarizing effect on the American populace as a testament to what religious fundamentalism and extreme anti-government rhetoric can result in.
Exactly 2 years to the day, directly as a reaction to Waco and other events, a Ryder rental truck filled with a custom made ammonium nitrate bomb was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people, injuring 700-800 more, and absolutely destroying the Federal building and damaging others in the nearby area.

Obviously the event was a national and outright global tragedy, with an especially gut wrenching fact that a day care was on the property, and 19 children were killed as a result of the attack. I personally remember it well, seeing it on the news regularly at the tail end of my 4th grade school year, at that stage not totally understanding the scale of what had happened but knowing that this was a major tragedy.
Thankfully, thanks to the operator of the van and the primary perpetrator of the attack, Timothy McVeigh, being an idiot, he was caught not long after the attack due to a relatively minor traffic violation which, thanks to the fact he had a gun visible in the vehicle, turned into a major deal, resulting eventually in his connection to the bombing and the unraveling of the entire plot, the apprehension of his co-conspirator, Terry Nichols.
Their reason? A hatred of the government. A feeling that events like the Waco siege, Ruby Ridge, the then active Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and the like were all violations of the rights of Americans. McVeigh was personally at Waco as the siege was happening having been on news reports expressing his support of the Branch Davidians.
Like most any major event in history, the full story in incredibly intricate. I’ve provided nothing but a basic primer for those who somehow don’t know of this event or a reminder for those who had forgotten. Naturally, you should look into it yourself if you feel the urge, but as with any tragedy understand that it is a heavy subject.
I write about it today to both respect the memory of the victims of the senseless attack, but also to point out what this type of belief system can cause — that this hyper right wing nationalism that is, ironically against the nation as it exists, combined with the almost always found hand-in-hand with fundamentalist Christianity of some form. These are views that I don’t just choose to fight against — I must fight against.

