Story highlights Errol Louis: Cops, restaurant owner knew 5 biker criminal gangs were converging; presence of cops didn't deter carnage

Louis: How will Texas 2016 candidates respond to this event's reflection of wanton gun culture?

Errol Louis is the host of "Inside City Hall," a nightly political show on NY1, a New York all-news channel. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Even while the horrific details from the fatal gang battle in Waco, Texas, filter in, it's not too soon to ask: Is this who and what we have become as a nation? A place where a shootout between five heavily armed criminal gangs can unfold at a restaurant, in full view of law enforcement, leaving nine dead, 18 hospitalized and some 170 people arrested?

Law enforcement officers knew at least a week in advance that a horde of bikers was converging on the Twin Peaks restaurant, where the massacre took place, and stationed a dozen local and state officers on the scene -- including members of a SWAT team

Errol Louis

But that didn't stop the gangsters from clashing with knives, clubs, and guns. Police say the bikers fired at each other, and eventually at the officers who tried to stop the carnage.

Are Americans now so lawless that presence of law enforcement doesn't deter gunplay?

Innocent patrons and restaurant staffers hid inside a freezer, KWTX reported . It's a minor miracle that no cops, restaurant employees or diners were hurt or killed.