Jack of Harts

Right now, 30 years ago, the FBI, ATF, and US Marshals were involved in a standoff at Ruby Ridge. Randy Weaver bought land on Ruby Ridge in Idaho in 1983 to get away from it all. A neighbor disputed a land deal between them in 1984, lost in court, and soon began telling the FBI and Secret Service that Randy Weaver wanted to kill the Pope, the President, and the Idaho governor. That started an FBI and ATF investigation that resulted in an ATF informant soliciting Weaver to make two sawed-off shotguns for him in 1989. The ATF tried to blackmail Weaver into being an ATF informant after that, but he declined the invitation. So the ATF said he was a bank robber (he wasn’t) and got a grand jury to charge him for making and possessing illegal weapons. ATF agents posed as broken-down motorists in January 1991 and arrested Weaver when he got out to help them, so they could inform him of the charges against him. And that was just the beginning of the Ruby Ridge affair.