[Webstral]

The Battle of Athens is a unique circumstance in which the veterans in question outbluffed a crooked law enforcement establishment. I realize that “outbluff” seems an odd word to apply to a pitched battle involving firearms. I use the term in that each side faced the prospect of state and federal reprisal. The veterans ran the risk of being rounded up and charged for the crime of using deadly force against law enforcement. The law enforcement agency in question had the option of calling in reinforcements from higher up the chain. They didn’t call in reinforcements or undertake to arrest the offenders because any counteraction by the law enforcement body in question would have led directly to an investigation of their illegal activity regarding the ballot box. In this instance, the cure (involving sufficient manpower and firepower to overcome the veterans in question) would have been infinitely worse than the disease (losing control of a ballot box they had no legal claim to control in the first place). This the veterans turned the usual threat of reprisal for breaking the law around on local law enforcement. Were the law enforcement establishment in question to have had greater faith in the positive outcome of bringing in help from higher authority, the outcome for the veterans would have been quite different.