Another update about te saga of the McCloskeys of St. Louis.
From the AP:
St. Louis couple charged for pulling, waving guns at protest
St. Louis’ top prosecutor on Monday charged a husband and wife with felony unlawful use of a weapon for displaying guns during a racial injustice protest outside their mansion.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who are white, are both personal injury attorneys in their 60s. Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner told The Associated Press that their actions risked creating a violent situation during an otherwise nonviolent protest last month.
“It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner — that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis,” Gardner said.
Gardner is recommending a diversion program such as community service rather than jail time if the McCloskeys are convicted. Typically, class E felonies could result in up to four years in prison.
Consider that conviction of a felony leads to disbarment, so regardless of the punishment imposed by the court, this will ruin their lives and their ability to make an income.
From the beginning, this has been an entirely political and partisan investigation by Gardner.
She is a radical Leftist who let all the arrested rioters in St. Louis go without prosecution. None of the people who broke down the McCloskeys’ gate and trespassed onto their property were punished.
The Governor has already announced that he would likely pardon the McCloskeys and doubled down on that since charges were announced.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson told “Hannity” on Monday that “without a doubt,” he will pardon Mark and Patricia McCloskey, hours after St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner filed felony charges against them.
Parson, a Republican, said Missouri was one of several states with a “castle doctrine” principle wherein people could protect themselves, their family and/or their property in certain situations.
“Without a doubt, Sean,” he said when asked about a pardon. “I will do everything within the Constitution of the State of Missouri to protect law-abiding citizens and those people are exactly that. They are law-abiding citizens, and they’re being attacked frankly by a political process that’s really unfortunate.”
The Governor is not the only state official coming to the defense of the McCloskeys.
The state Attorney General is jumping into the fray on their behalf.
Citizens shouldn’t be targeted for exercising their #2A right to self-defense
STL prosecutor Kim Gardner is engaged in a political prosecution
As AG I’m entering the case seeking a dismissal & defend all Missourians’ right to protect their lives/property https://t.co/kQLXOAhFIz
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 20, 2020
Note that both the Governor and AG have quoted Missouri’s castle doctrine.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen a state AG rush in to play defense on a citizen’s behalf.
So this is where we stand. The Circuit Attorney of St. Louis versus the Missouri AG and Governor. Will Gardner drop the charges or will she continue this prosection and try to make political hay out of it?
This is also building up to be the greatest victory for gun rights since Heller and McDonald. We are witnessing a state Governor and AG stand up for castle doctrine and the right of the people to stand armed in defense of their lives and property in the face of an angry mob.
We all believed this, but to have it explicitly stated by two of the highest-ranking officials of a state is a clarion.
The stage AG should bring charges of dereliction of duty against the Circuit Attorney for not charging any of the rioters. I don’t know if they have the power to dump her for incompetence.
When you see what the “peaceful protesters” did to the McCloskey’s iron gate, it sure seems like breaking and entering, and could be considered a threat to life.
“Will Gardner drop the charges or will she continue this prosection and try to make political hay out of it?”
Of course she will continue the prosecution, the process IS the punishment. Hell, she might even be campaigning for a place in sleepy Joe’s administration.
Then perhaps the AG needs to charge Gardner with:
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States
From footage of the mob, it seems that the first members of the mob through that gate didn’t actually destroy it. That seems to have happened a bit later.
I’m having arguments with people that have proof of the gate being open and undamaged as indicating that there was no danger from the “peaceful protesters” “walking by” Ken and Karen’s house.
Reality, there was no way to get to the Mayor’s house via that route. The destruction of the gate shows that the mob was destructive. There was good reason to fear the mob.
Part of what we are seeing is the destruction of language.
When I was in high school the term of the day was “Male Chauvinist Pig.” There was no way to refute this accusation. There was no way to discuss it. Once the charge was laid there was no way to get out from under the guilty verdict. And any female could lay the charge and verdict.
It wasn’t until I was in University that we found the term “Politically Correct Language” It was only when we could talk about being PC that we could talk about “Male Chauvinist Pig” because there was no acceptable language to describe the issue prior to the term Politically Correct.
Today we are seeing language being abuse over and over again. We joke about “Mostly Peaceful Protests” but even that term allows violence to property.
If I’m a business owner and some mob decides to destroy all of my plate glass windows, that’s thousands of dollars worth of glass per window. I had this happen to my business years ago. It was an accident, but the cost of replacing that window was around $1000 in 1995 time frame. It is more expensive now.
Even if my insurance pays for replacing those windows, it is still going to cost me in terms of increased rates. What insurance company is going to want to insure me if I have to worry about $10,000 worth of damage 2 or three times a year?
So I have to pay to put up wood barriers. Which comes out of my pocket. At the same time my business is suffering because the “protesters” are making it too dangerous for my customers to visit.
What if it isn’t a window being broken? They just tagged my business with graffiti? Now I have to pay one of my employees to clean it up and they might be attacked if they do. Or I have to do it. And risk being attacked for doing so.
This is by Lincoln’s words, slavery. They are stealing my labor. Instead of working on my business, I’m working at scrubbing my business clean of their marks.
One of the reasons rats are so destructive is that if they get into food stores, they will urinate on the food they can’t use themselves. Spoiling it for any other use.
In Islam they have a process where they take over an area and then transform Churches into Mosques. Once it is a Mosque, it will every forth be a Mosque and it is a huge insult to attempt to return that building/site to being a Church.
In BLM, you tag a building or place with the letters “B” “L” “M” or “Black Lives Matter” and it is forever forth a symbol of ??? and it is a horrible crime to remove or change the words/letters.
If you see a post saying that a symbol is “racists” or “White Power/Supremacy” or “NeoNazi” or “Used by new Nazis” then it is forever forth a symbol of hate and nobody else can ever use it again.
All of this is to silence those that reject the narrative. In the end there is going to be only one manner of speaking up against this, and much of it will be delivered in 55gr, 62gr copper covered lead messages.
Whether they destroyed the gate before trespassing or after doesn’t matter a whole lot, it’s trespass either way. A mob trespassing on your private property certainly raises a reasonable concern of bodily harm.
If the state Governor and state AG are serious, they could pen a request to the federal DOJ, recommending Gardner be brought up on charges for violating 18 U.S.C. 241 & 242.
Respectively, “Conspiracy against rights” and “Deprivation of rights under color of law”.
The statutes as written seem designed for the express purpose of dealing with political
prosecutionspersecutions (Dear Gov. Parson & A.G. Schmitt: Please use the correct word and call it what it is. Thx.) just like this.As an aside, I’ve seen commentary that relying on MO’s Castle Doctrine law is good, but they should also invoke the Stand Your Ground law. Sure, they were on their own property and covered by CD, but they had an avenue of retreat back into their house and didn’t take it. They weren’t required to, but the presence both CD and SYG bolsters the claim that the legislature did not intend for citizens to retreat from a violent attack anywhere they have a right to be.
It should not be necessary — CD should be enough — but the key word in both those statements is “should”. If Gardner can find a 2A-hostile judge (and she has the ability to shop judges), it’s often a good idea to go with a “shotgun” defense (or a “kitchen sink” defense), and preempt and defuse any potential “outs” the judge might try to find. Plus, a lot of times you can only appeal on issues brought up at trial, so bring everything up!
They are going to need that Pardon. After all since the courts are involved and pretty much all judges wish all gun owners to be rounded up and exterminated you already know they are not going to get a fair trial. And if it ever goes to the Supreme Court the Supreme Court will either do nothing or side with the state because guns and the Supreme Court believes that all guns should be banned, all gun should be confiscated by force And they also approve of the execution without trial of every single gun owner that resists. And even if they don’t. Because guns.
And I’m actually not being hyperbolic about the courts and the Supreme Court. I actually believe that now. In a weird twist of events the politician is protecting a gun owner from the courts. Not the other way around.
Which other way around?
The courts protecting a gun owner from the politician? (Which is how it should be, but rarely is.)
Or the courts protecting the politician from a gun owner? (Far more common.)
And I completely agree on SCOTUS, especially with Squishy Roberts in charge. What should be a slam-dunk unanimous decision seems to always have Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor opposing on anti-Trump principle, and “moderate conservative” Roberts siding with them, making it a “controversial” (read: re-addressable in the future) 5-4 decision. Kavanaugh hasn’t been as “Constitutional originalist” as promised, either.
Here is the law which they are charged under:
https://law.justia.com/codes/missouri/2005/t38/5710000030.html
It is in two parts and you have to read both parts. The first part says “It is illegal to” and gives a whole list of things that it is illegal to do with a weapon.”
Ken and Karen are guilty of part one.
BUT the second part is even more important, to wit:
“5. Subdivisions (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), and (10) of subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to persons who are engaged in a lawful act of defense pursuant to section 563.031, RSMo. ”
In other words, they did the action but the very law that they are being charged with says that it isn’t a crime if they “are engaged in a lawful act of defense”.
In order for them to be found guilty, they prosecution has to prove that they were not engaged in a lawful act of defense. Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground and simple Self Defense are all “lawful acts of defense”.
IANAL