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OUTLAWS AS THEY RELATE TO THE BIKER CHRONICLES
Only 1% of all bikers are outlaws, according to those who keep track of such things. And not every outlaw is a criminal - unless guilt by association counts, and it usually does.
Contrasting with the misconception that outlaw bikers aren’t very bright, quite a few outlaws are college-educated and extremely bright.. Some have advanced degrees, some never got out of High School, but the majority rests somewhere in-between.
Outlaw bikers run the spectrum of personalities, upbringings, and levels of involvement in crime, so there is no blanket statement you can attach to any of them, except maybe to point out that they all like to ride fast motorcycles and that are members of the same club... a club likes to ignore a lot of society’s rules in favor of self-governance. And of course, there are some very bad dudes that co-habit the ranks of outlaws, not just guys whose worse crimes involved using drugs and partying too hard. Killers, professional, serial, and otherwise.
Non-outlaw bikers run the gamut as well, and yes, some are definitely criminals, doing the same things their outlaw brothers do, including murdering innocents who might get in the way of a bullet meant for someone else, but they do it without the 1% patch glued to their vests identifying them as outlaws. Never mind that the killer might ride a Harley with a group of A.M.A. (American Motorcycle Association) guys wearing leather and bandanas. That A.M.A. club will never be slapped with a R.I.C.O. indictment.
So wherein lies the difference?
I think it lies mostly in attitude. Unlike “straight” bikers - even the criminal types - outlaws flaunt the fact that they live outside the law, and that pisses off the cops even more.
Outlaws are a lot more intense than their law abiding brothers and sisters, with their lives lived on the proverbial edge of the razor at all times, knowing that at any moment they could be killed or maimed or wounded, and not always by accidental means. They are tough, proud, emotional individuals living lives of extreme excess, living day-to-day and party-to-party, pushing the limits of all things legal or wise or safe, grouping together for protection and enjoyment, thinking that they are free.
But freedom is the ultimate illusion. They cannot get free from themselves or from the consequences of their lives. For many an outlaw, shit happens, people die, and lives fall apart when they try to cope with so much tragedy and find that they can’t.
Unlike their law abiding bretheren, a large proportion of outlaw bikers either overdose, go to jail, die young, or are forever maimed. But there are many others who simply fade away, finding out too late that once they’d crossed that old razor-thin line between the darkness and the light, there was never any hope of going back to normalcy, no matter how hard they try or how far they run.
Once you become an outlaw, you will never be the same again.
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