Gun-Toting St. Louis Lawyers Charged With Felony Dick-Being (Also Brandishing)

Missouri gov gonna pardon them so hard

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the gun-toting couple of St. Louis, Missouri, were charged Monday with unlawful use of a weapon. The couple was seen in viral video brandishing a tiny pistol (hers) and an overcompensating semi-automatic rifle (his) at protesters walking outside their mansion in late June.

Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner released this statement yesterday:

It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner at those participating in nonviolent protest, and while we are fortunate this situation did not escalate into deadly force, this type of conduct is unacceptable in St. Louis.

Gardner, who's Black, called the bluff of local asshole Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who accused her of civil rights violations for pursuing charges against white people. Hawley has threatened to sic Bill Barr's Department of “Justice" on Gardner.

This morning I have asked the Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the St Louis Circuit… https: //t.co/Q92F63j7GH

— Josh Hawley (@Josh Hawley) 1594901687.0 

This guy is a real pill and not the fun ones they handed out at New York night clubs in the early '90s. Joel Schwartz, the McCloskeys' actual attorney — one not auditioning for the 2024 GOP primaries — said the charges "are disheartening." That's what you learn when you go to law school: Felony charges aren't a pick-me-up.

From CNN:  

"I, along with my clients, support the First Amendment right of every citizen to have their voice and opinion heard," Schwartz said.

"This right, however, must be balanced with the Second Amendment and Missouri law, which entitle each of us to protect our home and family from potential threats," he added.

The McCloskeys can gun hump themselves into sweaty exhaustion, but they can't point guns at people without a valid reason. And their white flight, migrant caravan, French Revolution fears are suitable topics for a therapist but not justification for threatening random people.

Kim Gardner’s action toward the McCloskeys is outrageous. Even worse, the Circuit Attorney’s o… https: //t.co/DDHGxcEcL5

— Governor Mike Parson (@Governor Mike Parson) 1595288640.0 

Mark McCloskey went on Chris Cuomo's CNN show a while back and tried his best white lady tears impression. I'm not sure why his wife wasn't available. God knows if I'm ever looking at felony charges I'm bringing in the big guns.

MCCLOSKEY: I was a person scared for my life, protecting my wife, my home,my hearth,my livelihood. I was a victim of a mob that came through the gate.

“Hearth" is either their fireplace, which is inside their house, or a romanticized description of their home. Either way, he's trying to say “house" twice. We get it. It's a nice house. You don't want protester cooties on it, but Gardner and potentially a jury will have access to the viral video of this “mob attack." It's hardly a Frankenstein movie. No one approaches the couple's “hearth." The protesters walking along the “private street" rarely even cross into the front yard, which is sizable (I've lived places where if you stumbled off the sidewalk, you'd land on my coffee table).

The McCloskeys were in no reasonable danger. Fox News viewers might think otherwise, but those aren't reasonable people. The McCloskeys claimed they called the cops when they saw the crowd on their property. There is zero reason to believe that if they'd remained safely inside behind locked doors, the “mob" would've tried to break in and set them on fire. If anything, they escalated the situation when they came out wagging their weapons, because GUNS MAKE EVERYTHING WORSE. Fortunately, the “mob" of slow-moving pedestrians were mostly just bemused. They either filmed the couple for 2020's Idiots On Parade highlight reel or just kept on walking, which is what most people do when the barefoot nouveau riche point guns at them.

St. Louis couple confronts protesters with guns    www.youtube.com   

Albert Watkins, another attorney for the couple, claims his clients were "longtime civil rights advocates," perhaps inspired by all the times a gun-wielding Martin Luther King angrily chased people off his property.

Watkins said in an interview that the McCloskeys have "touched their weapons" just twice in their 32 years on Portland Place — during the incident in 1988 or 1989 cited in the affidavit, and on Sunday.

In the earlier incident, Watkins said, Patricia McCloskey heard a noise at night and saw someone.

"She looked down, had a gun and screamed for the person to stay off her property," Watkins said. It turned out to be a neighbor cutting through on the way home from a nearby business district. Watkins said the neighbor was then, and is now, a friend of the couple.

Yeah, this is not someone who should own a gun.

Gov. Mike Parson said last week that a "mob does not have the right tochargeyour property or come on your property." There is no “mob" in this video. Conservatives can't just submit as evidence whatever personal remake of  Straw Dogs  is playing in their head.

Unlawful use of a weapon in Missouri is a class E felony and is punishable by up to four years in prison. Gardner is open to recommending the McCloskeys participate in one of her office's "diversion programs that are designed to reduce unnecessary involvement with the courts."

That seems fair but Parson has already said he'll pardon the McCloskeys if they're convicted. He's even consulted Donald Trump on the matter. They'll probably cash out of this with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

[ CNN / Fox6 ]

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