Editing Timothy McVeigh (section)

== Post-military life ==
McVeigh wrote letters to local newspapers complaining about taxes. In 1992, he wrote to the [[Lockport Union-Sun & Journal|''Lockport Union-Sun & Journal'']]:
{{Blockquote|Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. [...] Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/US/OKC/faces/Suspects/McVeigh/1st-letter6-15/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080119111020/http://www.cnn.com/US/OKC/faces/Suspects/McVeigh/1st-letter6-15/index.html|archive-date=2008-01-19|title=McVeigh 1st letter|publisher=CNN}}</ref> }}

McVeigh also wrote to Representative [[John LaFalce|John J. LaFalce]] ([[Democratic Party (U.S.)|D]]–New York),<ref name="goldstein">{{cite web|url=http://articles.philly.com/1995-05-03/news/25671989_1_union-sun-journal-handwritten-letter-stun-guns|title=Mcveigh Wrote To Congressman About 'Self-defense'|last=Goldstein|first=Steve|date=May 3, 1995|publisher=philly.com|access-date=November 18, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304092453/http://articles.philly.com/1995-05-03/news/25671989_1_union-sun-journal-handwritten-letter-stun-guns|archive-date=March 4, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> complaining about the arrest of a woman for carrying [[Mace (spray)|mace]]: {{Blockquote|It is a lie if we tell ourselves that the police can protect us everywhere at all times. Firearms restrictions are bad enough, but now a woman can't even carry Mace in her purse?<ref name="goldstein"/>}}

McVeigh later moved with Nichols to Nichols' brother James' farm around [[Decker, Michigan]].<ref>{{cite web |author=Adams |first=Dominic |date=April 19, 2015 |title=Oklahoma City bombing memories fade in rural Michigan town at center of plot |url=https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2015/04/oklahoma_city_bombing_memories.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410163157/https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2015/04/oklahoma_city_bombing_memories.html |archive-date=April 10, 2019 |access-date=November 17, 2022}}</ref> While visiting friends, McVeigh reportedly complained that the Army had implanted a [[Microchip implant (human)|microchip]] into his buttocks so that the government could keep track of him.<ref name=washingtonpost/> McVeigh worked long hours in a [[dead-end job]] and felt that he did not have a home. He sought romance, but his advances were rejected by a co-worker and he felt nervous around women. He believed that he brought too much pain to his loved ones.<ref>Michel, Herbeck 2002 p. 102</ref> He grew angry and [[Sexual frustration|frustrated]] at his difficulties in finding a girlfriend. He took up [[obsessive gambling]].<ref>Michel, Herbeck 2002 p. 114</ref> Unable to pay gambling debts, he took a cash advance and then defaulted on his repayments. He began looking for a state with low taxes so that he could live without heavy government regulation or high taxes. He became enraged when the government told him that he had been overpaid $1,058 while in the Army and he had to pay back the money. He wrote an angry letter to the government, saying: {{quote|Go ahead, take everything I own; take my dignity. Feel good as you grow fat and rich at my expense; sucking my tax dollars and property.<ref>Michel, Herbeck 2002 pp. 117-118</ref>}}

McVeigh introduced his sister to anti-government literature, but his father had little interest in these views. He moved out of his father's house and into an apartment that had no telephone. This made it impossible for his employer to contact him for overtime assignments. He quit the [[National Rifle Association of America]] (NRA), believing that it was too weak on gun rights.<ref>Michel, Herbeck (2002) p.111</ref>

=== 1993 Waco siege and gun shows ===
In 1993, McVeigh drove to [[Waco, Texas]], during the [[Waco siege]] to show his support. At the scene, he distributed pro-[[Gun politics in the United States|gun rights]] literature and bumper stickers bearing slogans such as, "When guns are outlawed, I will become an outlaw." He told a student reporter:

{{quote|The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful, and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Guns of Spring |url=http://www2.citypaper.com/eat/story.asp?id=17888 |work=Baltimore City Paper |publisher=Times-Shamrock |author=Brian Morton |date=April 15, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129155757/http://www2.citypaper.com/eat/story.asp?id=17888 |archive-date=November 29, 2014 }}</ref><ref>[http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/21314 The Guns of Spring]; ''The Smirking Chimp''; 2009</ref> }}

For the five months following the Waco siege, McVeigh worked at [[gun show]]s and handed out free cards printed with the name and address of [[Lon Horiuchi]], an FBI sniper, "in the hope that somebody in the [[Patriot movement]] would assassinate the sharpshooter." Horiuchi's actions while an FBI agent have drawn controversy, specifically his shooting and killing of [[Randy Weaver]]'s wife while she held an infant child. McVeigh wrote [[hate mail]] to Horiuchi, suggesting that "what goes around, comes around". McVeigh later considered putting aside his plan to target the Murrah Building to target Horiuchi or a member of his family instead.<ref>{{cite book|last=Martinez|first=J. Michael |title=Terrorist Attacks on American Soil: From the Civil War Era to the Present|year=2012|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1442203242|page=289}}</ref>

McVeigh became a fixture on the gun show circuit, traveling to forty states and visiting about eighty gun shows. He found that the further west he went, the more anti-government sentiment he encountered, at least until he got to what he called "The People's Socialist Republic of California."<ref>Michel, Herbeck (2002) p. 121</ref> McVeigh sold survival items and copies of ''[[The Turner Diaries]]''. One author said: {{quote|In the gun show culture, McVeigh found a home. Though he remained skeptical of some of the most extreme ideas being bandied around, he liked talking to people there about the United Nations, the federal government, and possible threats to American liberty.<ref>Handlin, Sam (2001) [http://www.courttv.com/news/mcveigh_special/profile_ctv.html "Profile of a Mass Murderer: Who Is Timothy McVeigh?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071014123027/http://www.courttv.com/news/mcveigh_special/profile_ctv.html |date=2007-10-14 }} Court TV Online.</ref>}}