"If I saw a bunch of ATF outside my house with tanks and guns, and my children were in danger I damned sure would have sent them out. See, I love my kids." ap

I'm 100% convinced you find this persuasive ap.

BUT:

a) You have 20:20 hindsight here. You know the outcome. They did not. And so for the first 7 weeks of the ordeal, their judgment seemed sound. Their children were protected.
b) After 7 sleep deprived, besieged weeks, your judgment would not be sound. Sleep deprivation lowers IQ. It makes a person stupider. It severely impairs their judgment.
c) And the fact that you would post:
" See, I love my kids." ap

Demonstrates how estranged you are from reality here.

It indicates your contempt for the Branch Davidians, as if they do NOT love their children.

OF COURSE!! they loved their children! Why do you think it was so important to them to bring them up under god's protective wing?

So ap,
Would you have done as they have done?
Perhaps not.

BUT!!

You're not a member of an insular "religious cult".
These people had a screw loose from the get-go.
They felt particularly estranged from, and alienated by their government and the broader culture from the beginning.

And then, in their besieged state, you look down upon them along the long declining slope of your accusatory, bony finger of indignation and contempt, and second guess their decisions; you having information they did not, you having a world view they did not;
it's a ridiculous, self-aggrandizing exercise.

They did what the did, almost certainly out of good conscience; and if not, out of blind religious commitment to one providing bad guidance.

What devout religious believer would not be vulnerable to such misguidance?

"when the bigots of this world have been privileged for as long as they have, to them equality feels like discrimination." shiftless2