As a non-gun guy I had never paid much attention to the NRA. But their reference to "jack booted government thugs," in the wake of the murders of four ATF agents at Waco tore it for me, just as it did for George H. W. Bush. Although the raid on the Branch Davidian "compound" may have been bungled and the warrant they were attempting to serve flawed, the fact remains that four law enforcement officers were gunned down attempting to do their jobs. As we see in "Law & Order" reruns, if a warrant is flawed the matter is thrashed out in front of a judge. If Lennie Briscoe shows up with a flawed warrant, you are not free to blow him away.
Try to imagine the response of the NRA if, instead of being a heavily armed cult headquarters, the Branch Davidian "compound" had been, say, a giant crack house. Would Wayne LaPierre have still been supportive of killing four law enfordement officers? I mean, the Branch Davidians hit the NRA's version of the daily double, they were gun nuts and religious nuts.
I firmly believe that in that case, and many others, the NRA was a huge embarrassment to the millions of "law abiding" Americans who belong. "Law abiding" Americans, as a general rule, don't rationalize and applaud the killing of law enforcement officers.
