I think it is fairly obvious that all the 1% motorcycle clubs/gangs revel in their reputation and do everything they can to make others think they are violent and criminal.
Notably including the Bandidos, who are classified by the FBI as a criminal syndicate.
If you do everything you can to make others believe you’re part of a criminal gang, you can’t then turn around and complain you’re being stereotyped.
That doesn’t give cops license to kill you
But you (and a host of others on this site seem so focused on the 1% crowd, you are ignoring the other 99%.
Been a lot of that around here lately, whether the rush to judgement (the local Olympic sport) is over 'urban culture', motorcycles, or railroad engineers, and it serves the purpose of giving people a knee-jerk excuse to ignore the actual events and hang their hooks into a stereotype.
So much for "Truth, justice, and the American Way".
There are a few things that get lost in the other Olympic sport here, (jumping to conclusions), like the fact that you are innocent until proven guilty, that you have the Right to not be deprived of life, liberty , or property without due process of law, and the animosity toward the whole mentality of "it is okay when WE do it" that Liberals have. That goes out the window if the alleged evildoers are the ones WE despise.
That, FRiend is no better than the Liberals, it isn't the stuff Constitutional Republics are made of, it isn't "Conservative", it is just a different flavor of jacxkboots in the face.
One of the things I have loved in the past about this site is the ability of people here to see through the press presentation of this person as saintly and that person as 'evil' and cut to the chase--to peel aside the media window dressing and sensationalism designed to sell ad space, papers, and soap, and get to the facts. Sadly, the noise to signal ratio has gone off the charts lately.
What other groups of Americans will FReepers advocate be summarily executed by the police? Or left in the ditch to die for just driving down the road?
If it was a shootout with the police, where are the shot-up police vehicles, the wounded policemen? Nope. We have braying asses here ignoring the 99%ers who were in attendance, too, and calling for shooting people driving down the road because it would be blamed on 'gang violence' (just to purge the gene pool or somesuch).
There is nothing Conservative about that, it is just another flavor of the totalitarianism we all claim to despise. But maybe 'it's okay when we do it'?
Hmmmm. That sounds familiar.
Some of the finest people I have met, I met while riding. I'd trust them to watch my kids before a lot of "respectable" people in suits, because they have a sense of Honor--something most of the population just doesn't get. I have talked with US Senators, Representatives, State legislators, Governors, and even a couple of Nobel Prize winners in my travels, but the people I'd really count on when the chips are down are those whose word is their bond. I have met far more folks like that wearing leathers than suits, and many of them are veterans. That a few have chosen a criminal life, well, that is something easy to point at. For the criminal element of the 1%, there is at least a fundamental honesty in them proclaiming their affiliations, so unlike the thieves who dress 'well', hold themselves up to be respectable, hide behind lawyers, and smile for the cameras.
It has been explained on one of the threads here the origin of the 1% term, the absence of affiliation with the AMA making them "outlaw", and doubtless reality TV has gone a long way to glorifying any criminal activity present. Which plays back to the stereotypes...
The overwhelming majority of Bikers are not criminals.