Category: Safety

The Second Amendment: constitutional ‘orphan’

Is the Second Amendment limited to a handgun in the home? If the Supreme Court is too gun-shy to answer, the landmark Heller case will continue to be hollowed out by politicians and liberal judges.

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Missouri’s Republican Governor Backs the McCloskeys’ Right to Defend Themselves.

St. Louis, MO has been the scene of violent protests over the past few weeks. In the most notorious case of violence related to the unrest, rioters murdered retired police captain David Dorn and ransacked his pawnshop. Dorn was black. His killers shot him multiple times.

As “defund the police” gained traction in St. Louis and other cities, and cities all over the country lost hard-won ground to violent crime, Americans purchased firearms in record numbers. They are preparing to have to defend themselves.

It was in this context, and the rising violence and abdication of public safety in St. Louis and many other cities around the country, that a St. Louis couple, Mike and Patricia McCloskey, suddenly found themselves facing a large number of protesters on their property last month. The moment was captured on video that went viral.

The McCloskeys were having dinner when the protesters showed up. The McCloskeys were not the protesters’ target — the city’s mayor was — but the protesters were on private property and had damaged a gate on their way in.

Protests have turned violent in an instant, and there is evidence some of the protesters in this instance may have been armed.

The couple retrieved their rifle and handgun and made sure the protesters were aware that they were armed. There was a brief, intense confrontation that thankfully did not turn deadly.

When they kick in the gate, when the first thing they do is destroy private property and they storm in angry and shouting and threatening. This isn’t a protest. It’s a revolution. It’s just an attempt to inflict terror.

Protesters have once returned to their property, chanting “If we don’t get no justice, then they don’t get no peace.”

The city’s circuit attorney, Kimberly Gardner, has had police confiscate the couple’s rifle, leaving them apparently undefended should anyone want to harm them. The McCloskeys believe Gardner will have them indicted as well.

But the state’s Republican governor has weighed in on the McCloskey’s side.

Republican Missouri Governor Mike Parson said during a Tuesday press briefing that Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who were captured on video brandishing firearms as Black Lives Matter protesters marched past their home in June, had “every right” to attempt to protect their private property.

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Governor Parsons defended the McCloskey’s actions Tuesday. “That couple had every right to protect their property,” Parson said. “They have the ability to do that as private citizens like everyone else.”

Missouri respects the Castle Doctrine, which provides legal defense should a citizen use a firearm to defend their property.

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“Today, the ice-cold reality of self-reliance settles in when people observe professional protesters rioting with violence and destruction. That’s why they are buying guns.”

The Record-Breaking American Arms Race of 2020 Means One Thing: You Loot, We Shoot!

Florida – -(AmmoLand.com)- Record numbers of firearms have been purchased over the past couple of months in Florida and around our nation. Many of the firearms were – and are – purchased by people who never thought they would want or need a gun. Firearms training classes are full and booked for months ahead. Florida Tax Collectors are reporting huge increases in the number of Concealed Weapon or Firearm License applications being processed locally.

Around the country, professional rioters and violent protesters have been destroying private property. These acts of violence are soon followed by looters who help themselves to what’s left. These are not acts of civil disobedience; these are planned and orchestrated acts of domestic terrorism.

People around the nation are getting fed up and are buying guns, getting trained, and are preparing to protect what they have worked hard to achieve. We’ve seen people wake up and take responsibility for themselves and their property like never be before.

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The Gun Sales of June: When citizens conclude cops won’t protect them, they buy firearms.

Patricia and Mark McCloskey are the couple made instantly famous—or infamous—after a video showed them wielding firearms as they fended off protesters who had trespassed on private property outside their St. Louis home.

The Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, Kimberly Gardner, reacted by issuing a statement saying she planned an investigation, and that her office will not tolerate any effort to chill peaceful protest by the “threat of deadly force.” Never mind that Mr. McCloskey says he and his wife feared they’d be killed. As they told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the only thing that kept those mobsters, that crowd, away from us is that we were standing there with guns.”

If soaring gun sales are a guide, millions of Americans are with the McCloskeys. This week the FBI announced a record 3.9 million background checks for June, the highest monthly total since the FBI began keeping the statistic in 1998. Adjusting to reflect checks only for gun purchases, the National Shooting Sports Foundation says this works out to 2.2 million, a 136% increase over June 2019. NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva says about 40% of these checks are for first-time gun buyers.

This is a warning to the Defund the Police movement about unintended consequences. The more progressives push policies that mean cops won’t be around when people need them, the more they are inviting Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves.

Did you catch that?

“There’s no police there, our private security wasn’t there… oh my god, we’re absolutely alone, there is nobody coming to protect us.”

That’s why he grabbed his rifle. Nobody was coming when the mob smashed down his gate and marched onto his property.

Nobody is coming. You are on your own. Be prepared and act accordingly.

“Average people have no opportunity to prepare when there’s a bump in the night or a riot breaks out….”

“Americans who find themselves needing to defend themselves are unlikely to have spares on hand trained for the occasion. It’s these situations where they need a proven, reliable, and multi‐​purpose firearm—and yes, that includes ‘assault weapons.’ When innocent Americans can face multiple attackers, and it can take more than 10 shots to reliably stop a single one, is a 30‐​round magazine and a reliable firearm unreasonable? Definitely not.”

From “A Defense of ‘Assault Weapons'” published at Cato Institute in May 2019. I’m reading it today a propos of that last post. Last year, the question What law-abiding person needs an assault weapon? was asked as if it were self-answering and the answer was Obviously, no one.

Last year.

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