SOMEONE SHOULD TELL EDWARDS WHY AMERICANS ARE AFRAID OF THE GOVERNMENT.

There are dozens of examples of the federal government attempting to enforce local law. Often times these examples end in disaster for Joe Citizen.

Here are a few examples:

1. One of the first cases to bring natonwide attention to the federal government, specifically the IRS, run amok was the Gordon Kahl affair.*

Kahl blamed massive interest rates for costing him his farm. He also refused to pay a tax he considered illegal to a government he considered corrupt.

Feds and local cops planned an ambush outside of Median, North Dakota 14 years ago to quiet Kahl, according to Kahl's lawyer.

When the shooting was done, a pair of federal marshalls were dead, three others were wounded along with Yorie Kahl, Gordon's son. A massive manhunt followed which ended with Kahl and Sheriff Gene Matthews being shot, then burned by federal authorities in Smithville, Arkansas.

2, On October 2, 1992 a milti-jurisdictional task force raided the historic Trail's End Ranch. Authorities claimed Donald P. Scott was raising marijuana.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies joined federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, National Park Service rangers and California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement personnel in the raid. Even though the raid occurred in Ventura, County, the county sheriff's department wasn't invited to take part.

Scott, an eccentric millionaire, was asleep with his wife when the party heard a banging on the door. He opted not to answer. As his wife Frances Plante, prepared to open the door, authorities knocked it in and threw her against the wall.

When Scott saw what was going on, he entered the room with a revolver.

He was ordered to put the gun down. Scott lowered it in what authorities considered to be a threatening fashion. He was felled by a trio of rounds that hit him in the upper torso.

Law enforcement authorities found no marijuana on the property. Oops.

A Ventura County District Attorney's Office found that the raid was motivated by the desire of the sherriff's office to seize Scott's ranch under federal asset-forfeiture laws.

3. A few months earlier, August 25, another California man was the victim of a federal attack.

DEA agents kicked in Donald Carlson's door a few minutes after midnight. Carlson heard the noise and called 911. Next, he reached for his handgun.

DEA agents riddled him with bullets. He was in intensive care for seven months and miraculously lives. No drugs were found.

4. Last summer, officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided a couple in Fort Davis, Texas.

Terry Taylor, an entomologist, had a business which imported and exported dead bugs to universities, scientists and collectors. It seems the feds thought the Taylors might be acting in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

While the couple was at a funeral, federal agents raided their home, seizing every piece of paper, every record and the computer. A federal court then sealed the files.

The government may have thought the Taylors had bugs on the endangered species list, but all of their bugs were dead on arrival. Of course, the feds have refused to talk to the press or the Taylors about the case.

5. In 1994, Red and Erlene Beckman were thrown off their 15-acre ranch after the IRS placed a lien on the property.

Their house was bulldozed.

The American Patriot Fax Network (APEN) found the action peculiar. "Let us suppose that the IRS lien was in fact valid," APFN wrote. "If so then they would presumably want to sell the property for the most value, would they not? That would mean that they would not raze a dwelling which added value to the property."

6. Also in 1994, BATF agents raided the home of Monique Montgomery at four in the morning.

A startled Montgomery reached for a gun, was shot four times and killed. Nothing illegal was found.

7. On January 16, 1997, Maynard Campbell was murdered in the "maximum security" federal prison in Florence, Colorado.

Campbell had been sentenced to 13 years for cutting lumber on federal lands. He said he had a legal right to the trees through a mining patent that he held on the land. The feds disagreed and sent him to jail where he died.

8. On December 5, 1996, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced a proposal to "stop vehicles; search any person, place or vehicle without warrant or process; seize without warrant or process any piece of evidence; and make arrests without warrant or process" on private land adjacent to or water bodies upstream from BLM land.