The 1969 movie “Easy Rider” gave a look at the counterculture of the 1960s. The American public explored the lives of two bikers — played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Drugs and communal life, touchstones of the hippie movement, were prominent parts of the times that were achangin’.
A few years before the movie’s release, Hunter S. Thompson, the pre-eminent gonzo journalist, wrote extensively about the most famous of all biker gangs, the Hell’s Angels.
What role those glorifications had in Sunday’s biker gang shootout in Waco, Texas, never will be fully known — if there were any at all.
What it is known, with as many as 100 guns seized, two prominent gangs, the Bandidos and Cossacks, let emotions — no doubt fueled by alcohol and perhaps (do you suppose?) drugs — flare to the point that a shot fired was answered with scores more. Nine died, many were injured.
It’s logical to assume seeds sown in the 1960s — and earlier in 1953’s “The Wild One” — went far in creating the gangs that even today live on the edge.
Meanwhile, motorcycles have become a popular form of transportation, an opportunity to side-step daily life into an alternate universe if only for a short while. Fact is, not every biker with a do rag, ponytail and leathers from head to foot means to be mean; hardly any fall into the category.
Only a proverbial handful are in the same context as organized crime, which has occupied state and federal officers for decades.
In more recent years, the media has been titillated by drug lords and their multitude of subordinates, but the Waco tragedy — each person who died had family — proved once again that old ways die hard.
All who ride together shouldn’t be painted with the same brush. The overwhelming majority who organize themselves do so for commendable projects, i.e. to collect toys for needy children, raise money for good causes or support their religion through the Christian Motorcyclists Association. Freedom Riders and American Legion Riders are exemplary of their support for military veterans.
As often is the case, it is a few who if given opportunity would spoil the whole barrel.
— Bob Johnson
Gang shooting doesn’t taint all who ride
