Watch video of crazy biker gang shootout

and people decide to talk about the link going to a site with factually incorrect information.

Right, that’s one reason to talk about/against it, and another is the ways they distort information to provide meat for their far-right readers, and so another is to dissuade others here from providing that site with page views. If you want to correct something on BB, we’ll all be better served if you link to better sources.

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I live to serve you and make you happy Milliefink.

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I think proportionate response is the right course of action. I’ll put it another way, do you have any actual crime in mind that you would charge all 177 detainees with? “Being present at a gunfight” isn’t a thing. To me it seems like you just want to throw the book at these people because of their chosen stripe, any old book will do, and I worry the same attitude is held by the prosecutors. The psychology of identity runs deep and if you persecute people for who they are then not only is it impossible to also clearly punish them for what they’ve done, but ultimately you only reinforce the sense of identity that you’re trying to eradicate.

Ever had somebody tell you that they commit crimes because they’re a criminal? I have. He learned that in prison.

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Have you considered posting a counter link?

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You’re the one with an assertion to support with a link, not me.

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I’m guessing that many of those weapons are weapons that those dudes carry regularly, regardless of their intentions. They would probably bring them to a kid’s birthday party.

How many of those 1000 weapons were being carried legally? That’s probably one place to start.

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All of that sounds good but is veering away from my question, which was do you think appeasement of gangs is the right course of action? Your original post said the cops should “be nice.” So I was looking for a specific clarification on what you meant by be nice. I take be nice to mean appeasing gangs by allowing them to continue doing whatever they want to do and we have to be uber careful not to prosecute anyone that we haven’t build up a rock-solid case against, individually.

“Oh, you had a gun but you didn’t fire it today? Oh you fired it today but not at us you say? OK, let this one go. Next.”

I think not. They were all accessories, as far as I’m concerned. If they wanted people to be nice to them, they should have never showed up to the showdown that day.

Now I’ll be the first to stand up and say what we are seeing in our country is a bunch of heavy-handed thug cop behavior. I’m no police apologist. I hate the shit they are doing. But I hate the gangs and criminals, too. They all suck. If the thug cops want to battle the thug gangs, then let’s put all the thug bugs in a box and shake it. They can thug out on each other all they want and leave the rest of us the hell alone.

I’m not going to be nice to gangs because I’m worried about their identities. To hell with their identities. They can find positive identities that don’t involve being associated with criminals, if not aspiring to and becoming criminals. Being nice to them plays right into this meme of glorifying crime that we do here in movies and on tv shows like Sons of Anarchy. To hell with that. They don’t deserve our sympathy.

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It’s like Lawyer Person said, so mean to lock all 177 of them up for something only 98 of them did. The police should have instantly determined who was innocent and sent them home with however many firearms they brought with them.

Too bad there’s not a place where these guys can go and get all that out of their system. They should find a nice hobby, like riding motorcycles.

Also, re: “BB posts factually incorrect information,” you should abbreviate Breitbart in a less ambiguous form. There are other BBs that could be innocently mistaken for it.

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I think you might mistake “hey, the sheriff said they didn’t release the video” for an assertion of a the value of the site behind a link. I kinda thought that was obvious but that’s my mistake.
But, ok, I see where you are coming from. Plenty of people like to point out others mistakes for their own amusement without contributing anything other than their voice. It seems to give some people a sense of authority or some such. Who knows?
Anyway, how about the original source, a Facebook post on the Waco Police page by Sgt. Patrick Swanton? https://www.facebook.com/WacoPoliceDepartment/posts/884867438228480
But hey, it’s been a learning experience for me just in responding to you. Forewarned is forearmed as they say. Some people are just that way.

I don’t know where you got the word appeasement from but it wasn’t from me. Why are you persisting with asking me about appeasement when I never used the word and in fact, I don’t think it’s a very good strategy as you describe it? I don’t care what you “take” nice to mean, I’ve explained what I meant by “nice,” a better word would have been “proportionate”. I think you chose to stick with “nice” because it’s an easier argument to beat. It would be tempting to leave you fighting your strawman, but I can’t resist this one thing:

What, in prison?

We are the same, you and I. We both hate motorcycle gangs. The difference is that you hate them so you want to see them punished, I hate them so I will take whatever I see as the most efficient and effective means of persuading them not to be bikers any more. The problem I have with your approach isn’t that it’s mean, it’s that it’s expensive and it doesn’t work.

It’s so tempting because it isn’t a strawman. A strawman is something that a person sets up and knocks down all on their own. In this case, you used the words and I am still trying to understand them, but you are wiggling and dodging around no matter what I say. That’s not a strawman, that’s evasion. But whatever, you have your opinion and I have mine.

I haven’t said “my” method is superior to anything. I have said that I don’t care that they threw 177 bikers in jail and good riddance.

Demonstrate proof that what I’ve said is expensive and doesn’t work. Demonstrate proof that your method of proportionate response is superior rather than just stating that it is. Otherwise, all I take from this is:

[quote=“wrecksdart, post:9, topic:68395, full:true”]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.[/quote]

I know that years ago one of the members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club claimed in an interview that he was informed by a biker that they would beat up anyone they spotted wearing the band’s shirts. (For reasons other than musical criticism, before someone makes that joke.)

How true it is, I dunno. But it certainly fits with every other story I’ve ever heard.

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Yeap. Pick a book, any book. If the firearms code doesn’t have anything, maybe we can throw some sort of parking violation at them. I will repeat myself for you:

That’s the problem with picking through the penal code for post-facto prosecution. The perp sees what you’re doing, and whatever the label is put on the crime what the perp will understand is that they were convicted for no other reason than that you don’t like them. That’s what they’ll spend their ten-year stint internalizing. A decade is wasted, nothing is learned.

Evasive? You still haven’t told me what crime you’d actually charge them with. The closest you got was “accessory.”

Tell me, who said “appeasement” first? You sure put that argument to bed but also woke it up to begin with.

Edit: Oh sorry right, proof:

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/e199912.htm

The essential conclusions reached from this study were:

  1. Prisons should not be used with the expectation of reducing criminal behaviour.
  1. On the basis of the present results, excessive use of incarceration has enormous cost implications.

Now it’s your turn!

FWIW, I checked the link before I clicked on it (and did not click on it afterwards), and had the exact same reaction as @milliefink. Breitbart doesn’t issue corrections, they issue moans of censorship and strawman attacks. I put Breitbart on the same level as LittleGreenFootballs, or Free Republic, which is to say the fecal level.

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Turn at what? Sticking to my original statements? Which said:

and

Which I stand by, unequivocally. There’s no way to nice them to death. As much as you want to whitewash it or cast it in terms of prison policy or whatever you are trying to do to backpedal on that turn of phrase. Which you then tried to recast as “proportionate” response. What does that even mean? 200 bikers fighting in a bar means what exactly is the proportionate response? Send precisely 200 cops? A 1:2 ratio? How about a 1: 2.745 biker to cop ratio? LOL, your argument stinks no matter how you slice it.

I don’t even think they should be charged as accessory. Charge them all straight up with murder, attempted murder, unregistered weapons and everything else. Let THEM sort it out. It’s their problem, since they caused the trouble in the first place.

I was thinking like, back your point of view up with some sort of study or other evidence. Why should be treat bikers like absolute shit and expect that to somehow improve them as people?

Not “bikers.”

Specifically: Bike gang members who start gunfights in bars and have 1000’s of illegal guns. Them, specifically.

Dudes out riding their Harley for kicks are not in this conversation.

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inb4 yakety sax

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