Peace through strength.
Guns don’t hurt people, people hurt people. If criminals didn’t use guns, then they could use knives and be just as deadly. Assuming, that is, if citizens weren’t allowed to own guns. 
If someone came up to you while parked at an intersection or a parking lot and pointed a gun at you vs. held a knife to your (locked) window, in which case would you give in to him? Maybe not the best example, but what i’m saying is that guns make (most) crimes a heckuva lot easier.
Are you serious? So then what do you say about vehicles? The death toll is greater traveling in a vehicle then death by firearm. Maybe people shouldn’t drive because it endangers them far greater then owning a firearm. Have you ever given thought to why the death by firearm is soo high?
Thank you for your honest response, Surfer. It works in your favor.
You’re asking why they reinforced your stereotype/prejudice? Because you had it. They didn’t put it in your mind, you did. The danger in that situation was mostly about the group size (20 vs. 1) and your location (isolated). It sure would have looked like trouble for most of us. But they wouldn’t necessarily deprive you of your $700 unicycle because of their color.
Two suggestions. The more useful one, is to learn to leave out the color label. Call people people, not blacks. Call punks punks, not black kids. You weren’t threatened by a color, you were threatened by punks.
The second suggestion is ride someplace else. That’s up to you of course, but in my early days of riding I chose to practice in certain areas, and avoid others. One was my local mall parking lot. I alerted the security guys to some crimes because I was there, and once I got propositioned by a man, but otherwise it was a pretty nice place to ride. On Cass Avenue in downtown Detroit, I would choose not to ride (though I did on occasion, as it was near my college).
Why are you bringing punks into this? Does that make you prejudiced against punks? The story didn’t have anything at all about them being dressed as punks or shouting out tributes to Syd Vicious.
In fact, I’ve studied psychology and I remember that statistically, if a person belongs to one group, it is very often very unlikely for them to be part of a different group, whose interests may conflict. E.g. if it’s a black gang, they’re highly unlikely to be punks, of all people.
But maybe your punks are different from ours.
That’s Sid with an “i” and he was a “punk rocker”. The world’s greatest bass guitarist apart from everyone who has ever held a bass guitar, or walked past a bass guitar shop, or met someone who has.
But at least he’s not selling margarine or car insurance.
Generally the punks were harmless to everyone except themselves - at least around our area. It was yer mods who caused all the trouble. Nice smart young men in jackets and ties, and with short hair and polished shoes, and scooters just like their dads used to have.
“Of all people”? If anything, the punk rock movement was broadly against racism. It was all about rebelling against conformity, and creating your own culture. Not quite clear why members of a black gang should feel their interests might conflict with punks of all people.
In those days, the ones who looked weird, frightening or scruffy were usually OK, and the ones who looked smart were more likely to be the trouble causers.
I beg to differ.
I think that gang was lucky they didn’t have to find out what the business end of a unicycle could do to their violence minded heads.
Gun Control = being able to hit what you shoot at!
How can you call that bad? Really…
There are a lot worse bass players than this… not that he is bad.
Bad??? Entwistle is one of greatest bass players EVER! Sting and McCartney are also in the top 5. 
You called him the worst… lol
Either you misread what I wrote,or I have completely missed your point.
Sid Vicious (who features in my CD collection and for whom I have a sneaking admiration as a genuine punk rock icon, unlike all the plastic punks) was such a bad bass player that they used to turn the volume down to 0, and then secretly dub a real musician over him.
According to legend, Sid once said to Lemmy, “Can you give me some bass lessons? I can’t really play the bass,” and Lemmy simply replied, “I know.”
Not very nice of Lemmy, but perhaps he’d had late night.
The link that you posted was to a very competent bass player, being somewhat overindulgent and at great length.
I suspect-a the former.
I-a wonder if you can play-a the bass better with six fingers?
By that logic, Django Reinhardt would have been a mediocre guitarist.
I did NOT say that at all! I simply responded to Mike F’s post. (below) But I never said Entwistle was “the worst”. You somehow inferred that from my post, but I thought Mike was calling Sid Vicious a great bass player.
Look at Mike’s post again:
It was easy to assume that he was *praising" Sid in his post. If Mike meant to say he was the worst bass player, he should have simply said that, straight up. 
One more time to be clear: Entwistle is a phenomenal bass player, imo. End of story.
This simple, straight forward comment would have been 100% clear and unequivocal if it had been your initial post about SV. But oh well, I simply misconstrued your first post.
Ah, well that’s good ol’ British irony - our most successful product domestically but our least succesful export. Jane Austen wrote romantic fiction, right?