This just reinforces my opinion that those who ride ATVs and dirt bikes are assholes. The rare times I hear those things coming up on me, I get off the street until they pass. The type of person who rides them is likely to bully cyclists just because they can.

It’s a pity carry permits are near impossible to get in this city. What these jerks did is murder and attempted murder with the second cyclist. Any cyclist would be legally justified putting a cap in their brains in the interests of self-defense. That would have the bonus of improving the human gene pool.

They certainly are assholes. But the answer is not to empower ordinary citizens to shoot them. The answer is to expect the police to catch them.

Once I was riding my bike along Clarendon Road in Brooklyn, I saw a guy on a dirt bike coming down one of the cross streets, and about to make a turn onto Clarendon in the direction that I was going. I also saw a couple of police cars and about three or four officers on the street a block ahead. The dirt bike rider was going to pass right by them. I was sure that this guy is going to get stopped.

What actually happened was that the cops made no attempt to stop the dirt bike guy, or even to impede his progress. They didn’t chase him, which is somewhat understandable. But neither did they get on the radio and call anyone to be on the lookout for him.

This really surprised me. It’s true that those officers were out there on another call. But someone was committing a crime literally right in front of their faces. If I had decided to walk by them while smoking a joint, then they would surely have stopped me. But someone using a dangerous, violent, loud machine to terrorise the entire community is not worthy of being stopped? It was hard to believe.

Citizens already have the legal right of self-defense. In NYC they’re just not allowed to carry guns as a tool to exercise that right. They are however free to use whatever weapons are legal to carry in this city. Or to use objects not strictly intended for weapons as such. For example, I’ve thrown stones at people who threw stuff at me from their cars. Unfortunately (or fortunately for them) the car protected them. I hope that any damage done to their car (in one case a broken rear window) made them at least think twice about bothering cyclists in the future.

Ideally, yes, the police rather than private citizens should deal with criminals such as these. The fact they didn’t at least make some attempt to deal with the dirt bike rider shows they’re not there to protect us. They’re just there to take reports on crimes after the fact. That leaves self-protection to ordinary citizens. Hence the reason I strongly feel NYC should relax its gun laws. They may have to eventually as I feel these laws will eventually be found unconstitutional. Note that I feel, as most citizens do, that the state has a right to impose reasonable restrictions on firearm ownership and use. That could include training requirements for the type of weapon you purchase, prohibitions to keep the mentally ill and convicted criminals from owning firearms, age restrictions, and so forth. The NRA stance is to totally oppose all restrictions. As such, I think they’ve shot themselves in the foot (pun intended), and encouraged places like NYC to make much more restrictive firearm laws to keep out guns from places where literally anyone can freely purchase one.

They will be caught, and they’ll all go to jail. The clock is ticking for these moon-pointing gargoyles. They should start making the necessary preparations for a few years of the old mail bags.