But it’s important that we not forget that McVeigh is not the only one who has little or no concern for the innocent children he kills. After all, how much did U.S. government officials care when they killed Randy Weaver’s teenage boy at Ruby Ridge? How much did they care when they put a bullet through the head of Weaver’s wife as she held her baby in her arms?

How much did they care when they attacked the Branch Davidians at Waco with tanks and flammable gas, knowing that their actions were risking the lives of innocent children? How much did they care after they later dug out of the rubble the gassed and burned bodies of the Branch Davidian children?

Ask yourself: Would the government have behaved the same at Waco if the children of FBI agents were being held hostage by the Branch Davidians? Wouldn’t the level of government remorse been the different if those children had been the ones who had died rather than the children of Branch Davidians? Wouldn’t there have been an annual memorial service in both Waco and Oklahoma City rather than just at Oklahoma City? Weren’t the children killed at Waco just as innocent as the children killed in Oklahoma City?

Would it have made a difference if U.S. government officials had expressed at least some reasonable semblance of genuine remorse over the deaths of the children at Ruby Ridge and Waco? Would it have made a difference if there had been some reasonable semblance of a genuine investigation into Ruby Ridge and Waco immediately after the deaths occurred?

Of course, we’ll never know the answer to those last two questions. But how can we help but wonder whether real remorse and genuine investigations by our own government officials immediately after Ruby Ridge and Waco might have prevented a misguided soul from retaliating one year later through his intentional bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City?

Throughout history, there have been people with no conscience, both inside and outside government. Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City are just recent examples.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) in Fairfax, Va.

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