GQ had a very long, excellent article about the shootout. Among other highlights,
The Texas Department of Public Safety did its part to ramp up hysteria, leaking a “confidential bulletin” to CNN alleging that Bandidos in active military service were arming their chapters with grenades and C4 explosives so that they could retaliate against the police. One of the DPS’s sources was a club called the Black Widows, which does not exist except in the 1978 movie Every Which Way But Loose. In response, one biker blog jeered: “Waco Police Now Claim They Are Being Attacked by Clint Eastwood and An Orangutan Named Clyde.”
the organization’s state chairman … wanted to speak to as many Texas bikers as possible
Can’t help but feel like that’s the guy who’s ultimately responsible for all this. Let’s put a thousand firearms together in a breastaurant, it will be great.
Seems to me if you let go anyone who didn’t discharge a weapon, for a good number of them the whole shitty experience might be enough to make them rethink who they associate with. Give them jail time and you take away that choice.
It’s all shit & giggles until someone gets hurt.
I’m not in favor of the heavyhandedness the police displayed in this instance. But most of these guys in biker gangs are dumb as posts. They got their asses handed to them. I say good riddance. We don’t need biker gangs.
I’m saying maybe the best way of getting rid of the biker gangs is to just, like, be nice? Maybe some of them will get it into their heads to stay away. If you send 177 bikers into prison together they will stick together (albeit in their respective tribes) out of necessity and when they come out they won’t have anyone else to turn to.
I don’t think that being nice to biker gangs will make them go away…
… its me or it seems… not so bad from that video? I mean, I was expecting more… panic?
They’re essentially another form of La Cosa Nostra. Here’s a good show from On Point that covered the shootout. According to one of the guests on that show, if you want to have a Librarian’s Motorcycle club…
…and wear a vest with a patch on the back, AND you live within reach of one or more of these fucking asshole gangs (the Diablos, Cossacks, Nomads, etc.), you have to PAY them for the privilege of wearing the jacket/patch. Combine that with severe NRA-type lunacy and a prevailing storyline (floated by the gang members) about the shootout is that it was cops goading those poor poor bikers into shooting up the place, and, of course, it was only the cops shooting at the defenseless bikers because they hate freedom or some other stupid shit. Fuck these guys, they’re the schoolyard bully that grew up, bought a gun and a bike, and now thinks he’s god’s gift to ultra-masculinity.
EDIT: A WaPo story link as well:
Status quo it is, then…
I remain happy that I will never have to go to Waco ever again.
Brietbart link alert!!
That sounds like a cop-out. Do you really think that appeasement is the right course of action here?
The real problem with all these “Motorcycle Clubs” is that they really nothing more than criminal gangs on bikes. They try to claim that they are simply associations while actively involved in all manner of illegal activities, from drug manufacturing/smuggling/dealing to human trafficking to extortion to outright murder. They are not deserving of any sympathy.
Actually, I knew they didn’t before I saw the article since I head the police chief say as much on the radio this morning on my way to work. That link was just the first one that came up on google.
You may not like Brietbart but that has nothing to do with the facts at hand.
What I don’t like is the tendency of that site to severely twist the facts at hand. So much do I dislike that site for that reason that I’m not even willing to click through (thereby giving them page views) just to try to discern what the facts might be under all the insanity (and perhaps, given their tendency to distort, some “facts” that aren’t at all factual).
As is often the case with Brietbart.
That’s hilarious to me. BB posts factually incorrect information, a reader chooses a random link to demonstrate the flaw in reporting, and people decide to talk about the link going to a site with factually incorrect information.
Sorry, it was just a cheap joke that appealed to me.
If it helps, I don’t consider CNN a credible news source either 
