As for Mr. McCloskey– he’s apparently sued gun-manufacturers in the past. (And I seriously wonder who he voted for the past 3 election cycles.)
But– he has the right to defend himself. Just hope he’s learned a Lesson.

This is no problem. All the prosecutor needs to do is tamper with the evidence, and voila, an operable firearm, capable of firing.
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/prosecutor-had-crime-lab-repair-inoperable-pistol-before-charging-couple/

According to the St. Louis police crime lab, when the gun arrived at the lab it was deemed “inoperable.” However, crime lab experts reassembled the gun and wrote that it was “readily capable of lethal use”.

When the truth is inconvenient, change the truth. Al Gore did this quite a bit in his movie, too. This kind of thing also happened with the Duke LaCrosse team persecution, General Micheal Flynn (the judge even decided that a plea of innocence should be persecuted!), and a few others.

Who needs a fair trial when a biased one will do better for the prosecution?

“A person may, subject to the provisions of subsection 2 of this section, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person.”

” 2. A person shall not use deadly force upon another person under the circumstances specified in subsection 1 of this section unless:
  (1) He or she reasonably believes that such deadly force is necessary to protect himself, or herself or her unborn child, or another against death, serious physical injury, or any forcible felony;
  (2) Such force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle lawfully occupied by such person; or
  (3) Such force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter private property that is owned or leased by an individual, or is occupied by an individual who has been given specific authority by the property owner to occupy the property, claiming a justification of using protective force under this section.”

“If a defendant asserts that his or her use of force is described under subdivision (2) of subsection 2 of this section, the burden shall then be on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not reasonably believe that the use of such force was necessary to defend against what he or she reasonably believed was the use or imminent use of unlawful force.”

563.031. Use of force in defense of persons.
http://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=563.031&bid=33873&hl=

And in a wonderful twist— the State of Missouri also has the burden to prove the “firearm(s) in question were capable of firing.”
–apparently, Mrs. McCloskey’s pistol had the firing pin & spring installed backwards.

R.I.P., NFL, MLB and NBA and any other professional sports team that looks to supplant the American National Anthem for the “Black National Anthem” and / or the taking of the knee. Good luck with that. These corporate actors have already accepted the Globalist world model.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/giants-players-and-coaches-including-manager-gabe-kapler-take-knee-during-national-anthem/ar-BB16Ze4s?li=BBnb7Kz

And if you know me personally you know that I am not a big sports fan, although I do admire the athletic abilities of those who play.

But the direction that these multi *Billion* dollar sports companies / “owners” who have made their players, “Slaves”, multi millionaires are going is IMO based solely in pandering to “Politically Correct” and “Social Justice Warrior” corporate race extortionists like Colin Kappernick, BLM and Al Sharpton. And they are primarily pandering to the “Politically Correct ” among us and ultimately to the Communist Chinese who represent these sports franchises their next audience expansion opportunities. Plain and $imple.

Ask ANY of these sports players or their franchise executives what their opinion is about the Chinese Communists and their activities, in funny enough, their slave trade within their own country, their oppression of their own people, and their systematic extermination and genocide of people who they do not like. You will hear crickets. Ask the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, his opinion on the Chinese and their abuses. SILENCE, he and the rest of them will have nothing at all to say, lest they anger their expansion market and those Communists that control it. And that tells the tale. A moral duality smoothed over with lots and lots of current and future $$$$.

So as long as they can appear to take some moral high ground within the U.S. market and be outraged by the “rampant racism” that exists within America, and that is mostly a total fraud, and their cash flow is not threatened in their expansion markets everything is OK. The Chinese can abuse their people in ways that these frauds are in fact allegedly protesting. Does not really add up for me. What about you?

In the end all of this “black outrage” is being revealed to just all be about manipulation and the $$$ and in this process they are all selling out their own morality and their country to boot!

Cotour: I am not suggesting you change your opinions or conclusions. I am trying to help you present them better so you will be more persuasive. All in good faith and with good will.

You in your strict ideological interpretation are missing the pertinent lesson here, yes you.

And I do not plan on modifying how and what I post.

Two quotes from Cotour: “under all our noses while we all thought otherwise.”

“Learn to properly and strategically act and to not react based on what your enemy pushes you to do”

Cotour: You are always the least persuasive when you are the most condescending. You don’t know what others have thought. And to preach to everyone here about how you know how to “properly and strategically act” and we don’t and you are here to teach us is certainly a turn-off.

See: Kim Gardner, Bill DeBlasio, AOC etc, its a long and growing list.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/st-louis-circuit-attorney-candidate-defends-accepting-super-pac-campaign-money-from-liberal-billionaire/article_11036aaf-4b1b-58cd-871f-4084f1ec1485.html

Learn to properly and strategically act and to not react based on what your enemy pushes you to do in order to diminish you and your cause, in this case the American Constitution. This is for all the marbles, but then again it always has been about exactly that.

Soros has his Globalist hands involved in all of this and there may well come a moment in time in the future when he and those who he funds are served up some cold American reality. If not that then what?

And remember, America in its insanity remains an open society that invites in the likes of Russia and China, and it allows for counter Constitutional players like those listed above and financed by Mr. Soros who without doubt is using his ample funds not in the best interests of our country or our Constitution.

There was only one time in American history when there were actual Progressives that did any good in the world, and those white slave owning Founders of the American socio / governmental experiment is them.

And there in real terms is only one human being that stands in their way in this election cycle, guess who?

M. Webster: Ideologue: “1. An often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology
2: An impractical idealist : THEORIST”

“as long as there are ideologues controlling both sides of the aisle, legislative compromise is out of the question”

” the revolutionaries proved to be impractical ideologues who had no idea how to run a country”

“Each represents, for the ideologues who adopt it, a comfortably absolute view of the world that either validates or invalidates whatever policymakers might attempt.”

Sound familiar?

It’s the Ochs-Salsburger (spelling?) family. All sorts of Confederate sympathies during and after the Civil War.
(There was a lengthy book on all this 5-10 years ago, Mark Levin recently hammered on this on his radio show, again, last week.)
–They ran the Chattanooga Times, post Civil War, which financed their entre into NY and the NYT’s turn-of-the-century-ish. (They Owned the Chattanooga Times up until around 1999.) Needless to say, the paper was all-in on segregation, Jim Crow, and lynching’s.
They covered up Stalin’s murder of the Ukrainian’s in the 1920’s, and then they completely downplayed the Holocaust during & after WW2.

R7 Rocket: Your comment is unfair and verging on breaking my rules about insulting others on this website. Andrew_W made it quite clear that he allowed his ego to overtake him in a pissing war, and regretted it because he does not support the violence of the rioters.

Control yourself. We might agree on most things, but I want this website to be a place of civil conversation. You have been warned.

Why? Because the family that owns the NYT’s today OWNED SLAVES!

https://nypost.com/2020/07/18/the-family-that-owns-the-new-york-times-were-slaveholders-goodwin/

This is going to be purely a political prosecution, and it will drag on.

And that is what is getting lost in the conversation of patriotic outrage right here on BTB.

These Leftist operators are smart, Saul Alynski smart, and they want people like these home owners to get jammed up, and or arrested, and jailed for reacting emotionally to their carefully crafted pressure of chaos and Leftist radicalism. They want to use their Rights to push others over the edge or damn close to it in order to cause chaos and legal conflict. Its a diminishing strategy focused on THEIR enemies, which is YOU.

THIS IS STRATEGY PEOPLE, and if you fail to recognize it then you will react emotionally and they get another win. Pile up enough wins over time, and you win.

Get smart people, everyone is being psychologically and emotionally manipulated and if you allow it and can not see and understand it you can not develop any strategy to counter it and prevail.

So anyone can argue the general Constitutional ideal here (The Zman) related to someone being able to defend themselves on their property, but if you get into the details and how one properly accomplishes that defense from the real world legal perspective in the context of the reality that we find ourselves in America today and you want to win in the end this must be understood.

commodude/ sippin’ bourbon–
Good stuff all around.

[ref- “gated community,” that’s a red herring– by definition, the streets & sidewalks inside a ‘gated’ subdivision, are all private property. (the whole thing is private property, anyone inside such a subdivision is trespassing at a minimum.) Just wanted to dispense with that… ]

I’ve only been following this situation superficially, but I have been trying to play catch up.
(I did watch an interview with Mr. McCloskey, he comes across as intelligent and capable.)

Video below is interesting.
Wherein, in part, the defense attorney states that in Missouri one has the right to “flourish or discharge a firearm on private property, for the purposes of self defense.”

McCloskey’s Lawyer– Albert Watkins
Sean Spicer show
->7-3-2020
https://youtu.be/ySDshJf4LNs
10:23
–unfortunately, not a lot of factoids in this conversation, mostly political in nature–

Can someone track down the actual charging-document for what they are alleged to have done?

No.
Do not ever do this.

This is so bad is all situations. If you are ever is a situation where you must threaten deadly force, you have already raised the situation to high level of tension (not to mention some blood pressure). Threatening, but not actually having the means or the intent, of backing it up, is a recipe for disaster.

I actually agree with Cotour about training and a plan.
It is not meant as a detractor from the home owners. But if you own a firearm, you have the immediate responsibility to know how to handle it properly. With all Rights come Responsibilities.

A firearm is a tool. It is a tool for protection, by means of deadly force. Failure to handle firearms properly has a demonstrated history of killing and maiming. If you think training is a red herring you are promoting irresponsible behavior.

Have a plan. Always. Failure to do so results in panic. Panic results in doing things unintentionally. However, when a firearm is involved, no one will care about it when someone says “I did not mean to”, or, “I did not think”.

One article posted here says that the mob was armed. But it does not say with what. If that is the case, then they should have a good argument in court.

If they were, the idea of going outside the home to protect themselves (leaving solid cover and protection) to greet the mob was a bad move. They were open and exposed, and if the poop hit the fan they have left themselves with only one option, pulling the trigger.

———–
Mr Z, please don’t look at this as stomping on the Homeowners. Try to see it more as constructive criticism, or even lessons for other folks if they find themselves in a similar situation.

It is infuriating that that the Rule of Law is being perverted here to protect vandalism and trespass (and probably much more) in an effort to convince Americans that they must not protect themselves. That is the real lesson the left is pushing here. Do not protect yourself. Do not retaliate. Submit. Failure to submit is violence.

Andrew_W: Yes, I (as I am sure all who have ever had even slightest training in proper gun handling) cringed when I watched them hold their guns so poorly in the video.

That hardly makes them the villains here. Not by a long shot. We should stay focused on the real criminality, the violence of the rioters and the abuse of power by this Democratic prosecutor.

I don’t have a huge issue over the McCloskey’s having guns at hand, other than them pointing them at people when the threat was a fair distance away.

Trans: Excuse me, please?

We won WW2, but they do have excellent beer.

commodude: We won WWII and so I don’t speak German. Could you translate please?

entschuldigung sie bitte?

As far as the McCloskeys are concerned, the mob threatened to murder them and occupy their house, and kill their dog.

Too bad we can’t send this charming bunch of thugs to have an encounter with some of these commenters: let’s see their sang-froid then.

The couple in St, Louis was clearly within their rights, and the mob was acting as a mob, not protesters. I answered Andrew’s link as I did simply as an escalation of force viewpoint.

The woman instigating the confrontation was wrong, point blank, and is proof positive of Heinlein’s axiom that an armed society is a polite society.

We have lost all semblance of a polite society, in that we’re agreed.

The enforcement of laws and needs to be a non-partisan act, and we need to return to being a country of laws, not men. Only when law enforcement (and not the police, but every aspect of law enforcement) returns to being apolitical can normalcy resume. Those who would use law as a partisan tool should be universally condemned.

I just don’t understand this. Why is it when I post stories about Americans being abused and oppressed by the left, the comment thread focuses on attacking the abused and the oppressed?

In every case mentioned here in this thread, the cause of the problem was the aggressive, uncivilized and abusive behavior of the bigoted left, whether it was on the street in front of a strip mall, in a private gated community, or in the editorial offices of the New York Times. In every case there would have been no problem at all if the left had simply not acted like insane barbarians, causing fear and terror in whom they were attacking.

Can we please shift our minds to the real problem?

You what?? Did you even watch the video? They tried to leave and were blocked from doing so by the mad woman.

You continue to make absurd arguments to attempt to “prove” your points, utilizing strawmen and questionable facts, whether the discussion is US Law (which you obviously don’t know), the various discussions around COVID, or the religion of climatology.

I’ve given your pap far more consideration than it deserves.