The attention of the media has already moved on from the sensational coverage of the St Louis couple who stood their ground, weapons drawn, to successfully discourage a “protest” mob of over 200 threatening to assault them and burn their house down. But for the McCloskey’s, the nightmare is still not over. The legal battle is only just beginning with the McCloskey’s as defendants for peacefully and effectively exercising their Second Amendment rights. It is a battle worth monitoring as it in many ways epitomizes the fight between law-abiding citizens and those who would disarm civilians.
Despite living in a gated community, which gate the “peaceful” mob duly tore down to trespass past their home and shouted threats to kill them, the legally armed McCloskey’s are the ones the local Circuit Attorney has charged with a crime. This political move by Kim Gardner to pander to the gun control agenda of the Democrats misses the major point of the whole affair – despite odds of more than one hundred to one, armed, law-abiding citizens were able to peacefully prevent violence in their locale!
Gun violence is sadly common in St Louis, which saw 194 homicides last year (2019), most committed with a gun. Only 74 of these have been closed by the police, a clearance rate of less than 40%. You might think that the remaining 120 cases should be a high priority for the top prosecutor of St Louis, but garnering publicity by making a political statement through charging the McCloskey’s with felony charges for defending themselves peacefully is apparently more important to her.
The politics and history of gun control in St Louis is complex and the reasons for the historical high murder rates there are many, so Gardner’s move needs to be seen in the light of her support for current national Democrat gun control policies and perhaps her hope of political finance from various sources such as New York’s (Bloomberg funded) Everytown gun control group.
St Louis had strict licensing requirements through Democrats having unbroken political control of the city since 1949, but in 2017 the Republican controlled legislature of the State of Missouri passed a pre-emption law over-riding the city ordinances limiting law-abiding citizens ability to own guns. This brought the city into line with the rest of the State (Missouri is effectively a Constitutional Carry State with few restrictions on owning or carrying firearms) where gun rights are concerned.
The consequences of this easing of restrictions on gun ownership in St Louis remains to be seen, although so far no adverse effects are yet apparent in murder rates. Despite the wishes of the (Democrat) Mayor, (Democrat) Circuit Attorney and (currently all Democrat) City Aldermen, law-abiding citizens can now legally and easily obtain and carry firearms (as opposed to pre-2017 when only criminals had that ability).
The McCloskey’s were well-armed to good effect. It may be that the ability of other less wealthy citizens, especially minorities, living in the most crime-ridden areas of St Louis, will also benefit from this change to their ability and capability for self-defense? One can hope that this (Republican inspired) legal move to restore Second Amendment rights to the honest citizens of St Louis has a similar peaceful outcome as for the McCloskey’s in the coming years. Democrat politicians have failed over the last 70 years to reduce the murder rate in St Louis – it is certainly worth giving the concept of helping decent citizens to protect themselves a chance.