We say that not all outlaw gangs are necessarily into criminal activity - or not necessarily the same criminal activities as SAMCRO, anyway, as Kurt Sutter decided to avoid the typical occupation of dealing meth and instead opt for gun-running, which is way more wholesome and fun - but they still have their run-ins with the law regardless. The outlaw status is a worry to many, as is a group who claim to live by their own laws and flagrantly disrespect the police, even if they don't actually doing anything untoward. Simply not being authorised by the AMA can be enough to bring a group under suspicion, so you can imagine that a gang up to the same shenanigans as the Sons Of Anarchy would receive a lot of attention from local police. In the show SAMCRO manage to avoid any serious jail time (for the most part) because the law enforcement of Charming are pretty much in their pockets. Their old, leathery pockets. Chief Wayne Unser tends to let them do whatever they want since, whilst they do the gun running stuff, the bikers also successfully keep drugs and violence out of the town and tend to keep things on an even keel. We're not sure there's an outlaw gang out there with such a sympatico relationship with their local police, but a lot of them will be overlooked so long as they're not seen to be do anything too terrible. There's bigger fish to fry.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
