Exercising The Right

Armed Couple Defends Home & Goes Viral

Until late June, Mark and Patty McCloskey of St. Louis, Missouri, lived a relatively peaceful life as successful personal-injury attorneys who spent decades restoring a famous mansion in the city. St. Louis Magazine reported on the restoration of the mansion in 2018, and the McCloskeys’ hard work and attention to detail was praised as an admirable act of historic preservation. But on June 28, the McCloskeys became household names across the nation when their brave reaction to a dangerous mob of trespassing leftists went viral. The McCloskeys certainly did not want this newfound fame, but it was thrust upon them when Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters decided to break down the steel gated entrance to their community and illegally enter onto their private property. Some of the BLM protesters were armed and made violent threats as they forced their way into the gated community, and the McCloskeys knew there was no time for hesitation. The McCloskeys quickly retrieved their personal firearms, with Mark carrying an AR-15 and Patty carrying a handgun. The couple rushed out on their front patio to tell the trespassers to leave. The entire confrontation was livestreamed on Twitter by the intruders who intentionally mischaracterized the situation as “racist gun-owners” threatening “peaceful protesters.” 

A duplicitous media that is all too willing to spread lies and disinformation if it furthers a leftist agenda then parroted this false narrative. Fortunately for the McClos-keys, in addition to being well equipped to defend their homes, they also had the cognitive ability to verbally defend themselves in the court of public opinion. Mark McCloskey immediately began giving media interviews where he explained what actually transpired and refuted the false narrative propagated by the mainstream media and left-wing activists on Twitter.

In an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, Mark explained what he and his wife witnessed and their mindset at the time of the horrifying ordeal. “By the time we looked up and we saw the marchers coming down Kings Highway and getting loud, we looked over the gate, and there’s no police there. Our private security wasn’t there. Nobody’s there.” Mark said the protesters then broke the steel gate and forced their way onto their private property, while making violent threats to the McCloskeys. “People start coming in. And then a flood of people start coming in…. They are angry, they’re screaming, they’ve got spittle coming out of their mouth they’re coming toward the house.... I turned to my wife and I said, ‘Oh my God, we’re absolutely alone. There is nobody here to protect us.’ … When I saw that mob coming through the gate with their rage and their anger, I thought that we would be overrun in a second…. By the time I was out there with my rifle, the people were 20 or 30 feet from my front wall.... I was literally afraid that within seconds they would surmount the wall and come into the house, kill us, burn the house down and everything that I had worked for and struggled for the last 32 years…. I saw it all going up in flames and my life destroyed in an instant, and I did what I thought I had to do to protect my hearth, my home, and my family.”

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