From Michigan, McVeigh drove west to visit his other army friend, Michael Fortier, who lived in Kingman, Arizona. He discovered that they still shared the same concerns that the federal government was trying to limit individual freedoms, especially the right to bear arms. They agreed that the government had murdered the people inside the Mount Carmel complex. Others also agreed with them. When the surviving Branch Davidians were tried for the murders of the four ATF agents, they were found not guilty. Sarah Bain, the jury's forewoman, told an on-line periodical after the trial, "The Federal Government was absolutely out of control. . . . The wrong people were on trial. . . . It should have been the ones that planned the raid and orchestrated it."

During the next few months, McVeigh spent a lot of time in Arizona with Fortier where he worked as a security guard and at gun...