History Headscratchers / SonsofAnarchy

*** The whole "SAMCRO makes its money by buying arms from the IRA" shtick makes no frickin' sense! The Provisional IRA (and its successors post cease-fire) raised or raise money by a variety of means (protection, robbery, smuggling to name a few) but certainly didn't do so by selling arms. In fact, the money was partially raised to fund arms purchases - the IRA and its Loyalist terrorist counterparts are arms importers. Any small arms coming into Northern Ireland would have to be smuggled in (given that no firearms, bar shotguns and bolt action rifles, are any longer produced in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland and private ownership of anything else is essentially verboten in both countries) and then smuggled back out again. From Ireland or the UK to the US, three countries with probably the most efficient law enforcement agencies in the world. Oh, and the Northern Ireland sequences were just embarassing. Belfast Police Department. Seriously?
*** I don't remember that the guns were coming from Ireland, only that the Irish were providing them to the Sons. Perhaps the Irish siphoned a few off and sold them to the Sons in order to defray the costs of the rest.

* Okay, so in the finale, Jax goes on a rampage, killing all the clubs enemies and then committing suicide. The club is implied to have signed off on this, seeing him off and saying goodbye before he sets off. However, Jax does all this while wearing his colors and is the known head of the club and RICO is already established in this universe. Not only that, but all the members are painfully aware of it. While Jax may not care what happens to the club anymore, why would they sign off on the rampage if it was going to result in murder and conspiracy charges against every single one of their members?

* How come SAMCRO doesn't give out additional rank patches such as Road Captain, Enforcer, etc.? We've seen other charters such as SAMBEL institute this (Luther Barkwill is Road Captain when we first see him), but not SAMCRO. Is it because of the short number of members in the mother charter?

** Presumably they didn't want to stick around their crime scene after rousing up the whole neighbourhood by emptying their clips into the car.

* In the second episode when they're staging a crime scene, why didn't they shoot the bodies first, then put the blood so it looked like it was oozing out of the holes? It would have made it look more realistic.

[[Crime Scene?]]

** A condition of Otto's testifying was Stahl signing off on Luann's release ''before'' Otto gave any information. Once she was free, Otto knew it would look like he'd already talked, so he beat up Stahl.

[[WMG:The Ireland Trip?]]
The entire Season 3 plot arc set in Northern Ireland bugged me. Mostly from a meta perspective rather than the plot - did they not realise they could hire actual Northern Irelanders to play the characters, rather than dragging a load of {{Fake Irish}} people from America? At least {{Oireland}} was largely avoided, even if Belfast is far more urban, cosmopolitan and well-lit than the series presented it. I almost stopped watching because of this.
** Well Paula Malcolmson, the actress that played Maureen is Northern Irish, so there's that.
[[WMG:Guns?]]

* I've only finished Season 1 so far, but there was a weird continuity thing. Stahl arrests Luann for the drugs at her porn studio and threatens Otto with sending her up for drugs. So Otto appears to crack to make a deal, and then smashes Stahl's face on his table. But then Luann appears again at Abel's coming home party? How would she get out from under the drug charge, given that Stahl should be ''royally'' pissed at her and her boyfriend?

** It's likely they do have a high weapon turnover, as guns used in murders connected to or ordered by organized crime groups are usually disposed of so that multiple killings can't be linked to each other or the group.

The entire Season 3 plot arc set in Northern Ireland bugged me. Mostly from a meta perspective rather than the plot - did they not realise they could hire actual Northern Irelanders to play the characters, rather than dragging a load of {{Fake Irish}} people from America? At least {{Oireland}} was largely avoided, even if Belfast is far more urban, cosmopolitan and well-lit than the series presented it. I almost stopped watching because of this.

The entire Season 3 plot arc set in Northern Ireland bugged me. Mostly from a meta perspective rather than the plot - did they not realise they could hire actual Northern Irelanders to play the characters, rather than dragging a load of {{Fake Irish}} people from America? At least {{Oirish}} was largely avoided, even if Belfast is far more urban, cosmopolitan and well-lit than the series presented it.