All of this was completely unnecessary. These people were living out in the middle of nowhere, harming nobody.
I don't see them going after the gangs in $hitcago or Baltimore with that amount of force (tanks and armored vehicles)! Just makes you scratch your head and wonder.
The only thing that I can come away with is that the Feds play for keeps and if you do anything to thumb your nose at them or piss them off, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Ruby Ridge, Waco, Bundy Ranch, and Malheur are all proof positive of this.
You had all of the Occupoopers forcibly taking public land and camping out there for months with no govt permission slip and the govt came in and offered them free food and comfort. Couple of guys occupy an abandoned wildlife refuge in the middle of nowhere with, as it turns out, more undercover Feds than anything else, and they got hauled off to jail and one of them gets murdered for daring to have a conversation with a local sheriff. Again, makes you wonder...