Editing Timothy McVeigh (section)

=== 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>}}