BE OUR GUEST: SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN SHOULD END WALTER WILLIAMS' REDICULOUS, EXTREMIST RANTINGS

Bill Zellmer is a resident of Cape Girardeau and a previous contributor to this column.

I've always enjoyed reading Walter Williams, whose column appears in your newspaper. I mean, how often does one get to read the views of a conservative black?

But Williams' columns on the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas, suggest the columnist has gone from conservatism to extremism, and make so little sense that he has lost at least this fan.

In his first column on the subject, which seemed to be focused on the right to bear arms, he suggested the cultists were correct in "defending" themselves against ATF agents executing search warrants, and thus the murder of four agents and the wounding of 16 others was legal and justified.

To extrapolate, he is saying any citizen has the right to defend his home, including the use of deadly force, against search warrants executed by county deputies or police officers or federal marshals. A detective arriving at your house with a search warrant (most judges, I presume, require pretty good evidence before they'll sign a search warrant) for stolen merchandise, or drugs or whatever, you have the right to shoot him down?

I suspect most first graders could see the idiocy of such logic, though it appears to be over the head of Mr. Williams.

In his second column on the subject, Williams quotes other writers comparing the ATF agents to Nazi SS agents raiding the Jewish compound at Warsaw, Poland. Bit of a reach for me, and I suspect most other law abiding citizens too, but Williams is really worked up on the subject, writing, "They used...CS gas, banned for use in war...."

Oh? Tear gas is banned for use in war but nuclear weapons are not? Williams goes on to relate that from what he has learned the Branch Davidians were "model citizens." Yes, if you ignore the fact that more than 50 of them were illegal aliens. That a number of David Koresh's "wives" were welfare abusers, illegally obtaining great stores of food at taxpayer expense. That model citizen David Koresh had "married" a 14-year-old girl, impregnated her, took other men's wives as his own, and had sexual relations with a number of teenage girls, several of whom bore his children. That the cult had obtained large stores of illegal weapons and were preparing to convert other semiautomatic weapons to automatic status in violation of U. S. laws. That cult members were training in the use of these automatic weapons against possible searches.

Not to mention the fact that these "model citizens" murdered four law enforcement officers and wounded 16 others in the proper execution of their duties.

Williams, and others, argue that the Waco mess could have been resolved in some other manner than the final assault that did end so tragically. But that is like saying the police should not assault a house in the center of town where a mass murderer is holed up with children as hostages. You know they have to do something, just the FBI had to, eventually, at Waco (that's not to say that the final assault could not have been handled differently and better).

In the end Williams makes some sort of rambling analogy with the Rodney King arrest/beating in Los Angeles. Once again he's off-base, comparing apples and oranges.

There the police officers were convicted of using excessive force against a suspect who had ceased to resist. The Waco cultists never ceased to resist, though, of course, they could have ended the standoff quickly and easily. Meanwhile, the Southeast Missourian should quickly and easily end Walter Williams' ridiculous and extremist rantings by dropping his column.