Outlaw motorcycle club
[15] However, there is also a subculture of outlaw biker activity which revolves around performing outrageous acts, the denigration of women, maintaining a macho image, and the heavy use of drugs and alcohol.
Many non-outlaw motorcycle riding clubs such as the Harley Owners Group also wear patches on the back of their vests, without including the letters MC.
[42][43][44] It has also been suggested that these definitions are a hoax, intended to make fools of those outside the outlaw biker world, and also to serve the purpose of provoking outrage among conservative public and authorities.
[45] Frequently, additional patches may involve symbols, such as the use of the Iron Cross, Nazi swastikas, the Sig Rune insignia of the Schutzstaffel or the Totenkopf.
[48] Rather, in some 1%er clubs, women have in the past been portrayed as submissive or victims to the men,[49] treated as property, forced into prostitution or street-level drug trafficking, and often physically and sexually abused,[50] their roles as being those of obedient followers and their status as objects.
I'd much prefer to be living with an OMC member than some dork who is a pawn in the system", said one woman who felt she and her peers had "set the record straight".
[18][60] The term "outlaw motorcycle gang" was coined by the journalist Hunter S. Thompson in 1966 and was subsequently adopted by federal and local law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere.
[8][82] Crimes are typically carried out by associates rather than "full patch" members in order to protect the club from implication by law enforcement.
[84] In October 2008, the FBI announced the end of a six-month undercover operation by agents into the narcotics trafficking by the Mongols Motorcycle Club.
The bust went down with 160 search warrants and 110 arrest warrants[85] Canada, especially, has in the late 20th century experienced a significant upsurge in crime involving outlaw motorcycle clubs, most notably in what has been dubbed the Quebec Biker War, which has involved more than 150 murders[86] (plus a young bystander killed by an exploding car bomb), 84 bombings, and 130 cases of arson.
[90] Contrary to other criminal organizations, OMGs operate on an individual basis instead of top-down, which is how supporters can claim that only some members are committing crimes.
[91] U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent William Queen, who infiltrated the Mongols, wrote that what makes a group like them different from the Mafia is that crime and violence are not used as expedients in pursuit of profit, but that the priorities are reversed.
But in June 2011 the High Court of Australia overturned a law that outlawed crime-focused motorcycle clubs and required members to avoid contact with one another.
[93] In the U.S., a Federal judge rejected a prosecutor's request to seize ownership of the Mongols Motorcycle Club logo and name, saying the government had no right to the trademarks.
[104] Although the outlaw motorcycle club subculture has a tendency to be associated with the United States, a large number of regional scenes have emerged transcontinentally within countless nations across the globe.
However, a good amount of the country's groups are chapters of international one-percenter clubs which originated outside of Commonwealth of Australia such as the Hells Angels and the Mongols MC.
[123] After the Rock Machine emerged in 1986, they quickly became the number one rival of the Hells Angels, and a full-blown turf war between the two biker gangs erupted in the 1990s; unfortunately, claiming more than 150 individual lives, including two (2) prison guards and an innocent 11-year-old boy named Daniel Desrochers, who died several days after a planted car bomb exploded and a piece of shrapnel penetrated his head.
[123][122] Throughout the 1990s, the province of Quebec witnessed violent confrontations between rivaling outlaw biker gangs with activities that ranged from homicides to bombings.
"[122] The Quebec Biker Wars officially began on 13 July 1994, when three (3) masked-men shot and killed Pierre D'aoust (member of a Hells Angels-affiliated club called the Death Riders) at a motorcycle shop in Montreal.
The Hells Angels (or "H-A" as they're often referred to) were, and continue to be, one of the more prominent biker gangs still in existence today in Quebec and other regions of Canada – having at least 34 different chapters across the country in April 2009.
[139] New Zealand has a rather large outlaw motorcycle club scene which has gained a significant amount of national and international media attention over the years.
[9] Early biker clubs established by World War II veterans included the Boozefighters, the Hells Angels, the Market Street Commandos and the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington.
[153] A government survey published in 1990 found that outlaw motorcycle gangs control 40% of the traffic of dangerous drugs in the U.S., including three quarters of the methamphetamine trade.
Motorcycle gangs are also more heavily involved in prostitution on the East Coast than on the West; women operate the streets and out of gang-owned massage parlours and escort services.
[162] In post–World War II California, four motorcycle clubs—the Market Street Commandos, the Boozefighters, the Galloping Gooses, and the Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington—became prominent.
As a result of stringent laws regarding the sale of precursor chemicals, and the formation of task forces to target clandestine labs in California, many methamphetamine manufacturers from the state relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where the rugged terrain and sparse population of rural Oregon and Washington made ideal conditions for clandestine meth labs.
According to a 1989 report by the Western States Information Network (SWIN), 11% of drug labs seized had outlaw motorcycle gang paraphernalia present at the site.
[164] It generally exists as a negative stereotype in the public's subconscious[165] and yet has inspired fashion trends[166][167][168] for both males and, as "biker babes", for females.
[169][170][171] The appearance has even been exploited by the fashion industry bringing it into legal conflict with some clubs[172] and simultaneously encouraging a cultural specific fetishistic look that conveys sex, danger, rebelliousness, masculinity, and working class values.
[177] Bikers, their clothing, and motorcycles have become cultural icons[178][179] of mythic status, their portrayal generally exaggerating a criminal or deviant association exploited by the media for their own often financial interests.
