End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America
by Chris Jennings
View on GoodreadsChris Jennings's 2025 reconstruction of the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff — Randy Weaver, the ATF firearms charges, the Marshal-and-Vicki-Weaver-killings, the FBI siege — as the founding trauma of the modern far-right militia movement and the federal-law-enforcement reckoning that followed.
Core ideas
- The federal screwups (the entrapment charge that produced the initial warrant, the rules-of-engagement violation that produced the Vicki Weaver death) are reconstructed in detail; the case for federal-law-enforcement misconduct is documentary, not rhetorical.
- The mythological aftermath is the book's broader argument — Ruby Ridge became the founding grievance of a militia movement that would produce Oklahoma City in 1995 and recur in spirit through the Trump-era movements; the federal response established a template that has been reused.
- The "apocalypse" subtitle is operative — Weaver's Christian Identity / millenarian framing is treated as essential to understanding why Ruby Ridge resonated when it did, with people whose theology made government violence cosmologically meaningful.
Published2026
Pages384
ISBN9780316381949
ReadApr 2026
