A group of Federal Law Enforcement agencies released the “National Gang Threat Assessment” for 2009. This is rather interesting because it has a lot of big numbers in it. Big numbers mean lots of involvement and gangs tend to work in groups. The lone mugger may be almost extinct, replaced by three or more people intending to harm you at once. This report notes that “approximately 1 million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs were criminally active within all 50 states….as of September 2008.” State and local law enforcement reports gang activity in 58% of their jurisdictions in 2008, it was 45% in 2004. The report divides gangs into three groups: street, prison and outlaw motorcycle.

Street gangs are said to be “the largest and control the greatest geographical area….Currently, 11 national-level street gangs have been identified in the United states…” The next gang type listed is those that operate from inside prisons (147,000 members). Last is the outlaw motorcycle groups with 20,000 members. Rather a surprise to me given that the big biker clubs tend to have such a media presence and fearsome reputation – yet there are relatively so few of them.

Of the three groups, I’d personally think of an outlaw biker as more a wolf than anyone in the other two groups, which is interesting since the outlaw bikers tend to keep to themselves and are not known for randomly attacking civilians for no reason (yes, if you’re around outlaw bikers and you are stupid, you’ll probably insult one of them and get hurt). I just leave them alone, they leave me alone and I don’t consider this group a threat at all. The gang members who are incarcerated are also not a threat, since I don’t spend time in prisons.

This leaves the largest group, the street gangs that operate almost everywhere. “Violent disputes over control of drug territory and enforcement of drug debts frequently occur among street gangs in urban areas and, increasingly, in suburban communities where gangs have expanded their drug distribution operations. Gang members also engage in a host of other criminal activities such as auto theft, assault, alien smuggling, burglary, drive-by shootings, extortion, firearms offenses, home invasion robberies, homicide, identity theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, operating prostitution rings, and weapons trafficking.” Sounds like these people stay rather busy. My personal assessment of this is not that I’d be directly involved in one of these illegal activities but that one of these activities would occur at some time where I would be nearby or worse. I then have to deal with multiple adversaries and those threats might have even more friends nearby. Please consider what you would do with more than one attacker and what weapon or weapons would best win the fight. I’ll discuss multiple attackers often in the future because I believe that’s what we will be faced with.