Replies

You're welcome, I did misunderstand your point and raised the ante on the disparity of police response considering the level of behaviour at Baltimore versus Waco before the shooting started. Not knowing who exactly started that, nor the fine points immediately following, whether police response (any shooting) was justified or not remains to be sorted out, but my impression is that it was excessive. We'll see. Considering that there had been no problems at other CoC meetings, this is unusual, and the police UC/CI presence in the clubs which were apparently involved raises the question of agents provocateur and orchestration with the unprecedented police presence at the site.

As for "gangs", when the defining characteristic is: 'similarly clothed and wearing patches', that covers everyone from Brownie Scouts to the Navy SEALs to the Yakusa (who have their patches tattooed on).

My point, to clarify, is that wearing patches is probably an unconstitutionally vague qualification for being considered a member of a "Biker Gang" (AKA: motorcycle club).

Wearing a specific club patch may indicate membership in group known to have a large proportion of members who have been arrested and/or convicted of crimes compared to people wearing polo shirts, for instance, but wearing the patch alone is not a crime, nor is membership in the group.

Beyond that, when we vilify and thus justify raiding or summary justice against entire groups on the basis of one or even a few members, the NRA, the BSA, even the Bridge club may well be open to being raided as 'criminal organizations'.

We do not want that future, and it is best to keep that camel's nose out of the Republic's tent. There are people in all of those who have committed some crime.

I believe my first post on this thread, href=http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3300886/posts?page=36#36 where I responded to one of these LEO types is what I have maintained. I believe that position is not fundamentally different from yours. Having a police presence in a potential trouble spot is different from having a hundred armed yahoos getting ready to lock and load from the safety of their squad cars.