[4] The Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club was founded in Niwot, Colorado in 1966 by Bruce Gale "The Dude" Richardson, who was living in Longmont after serving in the U.S. Navy from July 1958 to February 1960.

[14] This insignia is worn as a patch that is sewn on the back of each full member's cut-off jacket (known as "colors"), along with assorted other badges featuring symbols and phrases.

[3] Six members – Scott Bennigsdorf, John Barnard, Bobby Mann, Art Miller, Mark Wagar, and national president Bruce Richardson – were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and jailed for their involvement in a bar brawl in Colorado Springs on March 5, 1972.

The brawl involved a total of twenty-two participants and was the result of a power struggle between the Sons of Silence and two other motorcycle clubs, the Dead Men and a group known as Philtown.

[21] Six members of the Sons of Silence – Jack E. Houser, Jr., James Dean "Jimmy" Jahnke, Jerald W. Richardson, Larry Lee Richardson, Dennis Raymond Swingler and Ralph W. Vicory – were convicted of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine after Houser, Jahnke, Swingler and Vicory were arrested on I-80 in Wyoming while transporting thirty-six pounds of the drug as well as a mobile drug lab obtained from Cecelia Martinez – wife of the imprisoned Barhoppers Motorcycle Club president Glen Gary – in Modesto, California on January 23, 1983 to Denver.

[23] Another bar fight involving the Sons of Silence and the Invaders motorcycle gang at a Denver tavern resulted in a series of sporadic shootings.

Sons of Silence biker Ron Bemis was shot to death in his driveway by Invaders member Alfred H. "Crazy Al" Mills, who was subsequently convicted of murder.

[23] On October 9, 1999, thirty-seven Sons of Silence members were arrested on drug trafficking and illegal weapons charges after one of Colorado's largest federal undercover operations.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raided a number of homes and properties in Colorado Springs, Commerce City and Fort Collins, and seized twenty pounds of methamphetamine, thirty-five guns, four hand grenades, two suppressors, cash and motorcycles.

Two men – Stanley B. Glade and Justin W. Jeske – were arrested after assaulting and robbing a Sons of Silence member at his home in Longmont on April 17, 2012.

[31] The Sons of Silence, along with the Diablos, are the primary wholesalers of methamphetamine in Vigo County, transporting the drug into the area via the Southwestern United States.

[36] The conflict between the Sons of Silence and the Outlaws in Indianapolis in the late 1970s and early 1980s resulted in a number of murders, including those of two girlfriends of SOSMC members.

[36] Sons of Silence Indianapolis chapter vice president Steven Wayne "Crescent Wrench" Kressin was the alleged killer of Reeves, using an AK-47 assault rifle.

[23][33] On October 4, 1980, Lisa J. Reimer, the girlfriend of a Sons of Silence member, was shot in the back of the head and killed during a shootout on an entry ramp to Interstate 465 while riding as a passenger on a motorcycle.

[36] The murder remains unsolved,[37] although police theorized that the shooting was caused by an Outlaws ambush and that the intended target was Daryl W. "Wino" Sturges, president of the Indianapolis Sons of Silence chapter from June 1978 to October 1980.

[39][40] On February 24, 1991, a large group of Outlaws were attacked by several members of the Sons of Silence at a motorcycle swap meet at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.

[11] Members and associates of the Indianapolis and Terre Haute chapters of the Sons of Silence were indicted in October 2011 following an FBI investigation into the club's activities known as "Operation Saw Mill".

[43] Sons of Silence enforcer Ronald Merrill "Bad Ron" Gruber was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for rape and assault in Black Hawk County in October 1977.

As a prisoner at FCI Greenville in Illinois in August 1996, Gruber was charged with the shotgun murder of Penny Jean Sternquist Weitzel, who was killed in Boone on November 30, 1984.

[47] Sons of Silence member Clark Joseph Cook was convicted of possession of methamphetamine after he was found to be carrying a bag of the drug during a traffic stop by the Iowa State Patrol on September 5, 1993.

[53] Cuervo, Norman and Schoenauer – the Sons of Silence's national treasurer – were convicted of numerous narcotics and firearms offenses related to a conspiracy to distribute controlled substances that lasted from 1978 through 2001.

Milton Charles "Barbwire" Wilson, the president of the Sons of Silence's Kansas City chapter, was charged in May 2014 with transporting a minor across state lines for prostitution, along with Kayla "Foxy" Pinkerton.

[56] In August 1984, Sons of Silence founder Bruce "The Dude" Richardson was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to hiring Robert Leslie Konitski to organize the May 1984 abduction of Dr. Michael Roark from a Buffalo hotel.

The club is involved in methamphetamine trafficking throughout North Dakota, typically using smaller, affiliated motorcycle gangs to distribute the drug at the retail level in order to gain insulation from law enforcement scrutiny.

[15] The Sons of Silence are alleged to have ordered the murder of Williston rancher Jack Sjol who went missing in April 2013 and whose body was found in rural Williams County the following month.

[59] Billy Joe Herman, an enforcer for the Sons of Silence but not a member of the club, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to the October 12, 2015 murder of Amanda Stach Engst, who was killed on the Spirit Lake reservation.