Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The McCloskeys aren’t likely to be your typical Bearing Arms readers. From what I’ve seen, they lean heavily to the left in their politics and would probably just as soon see many of us disarmed as talk to us.
However, regardless of their opinions about anything, there’s right and there’s wrong. Neither of those things hinges on the St. Louis couple’s personal politics.
Nor does my view of the abominable treatment they’ve received not just from their local government, but from the media. Take this editorial from the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch.
The McCloskey Barefoot Armed Porch Gang is expanding into a national political movement now that President Donald Trump, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Gov. Mike Parson have joined this circus of absurdity and insanity. A simple navigational mistake by protesters targeting the nearby house of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson on June 28 escalated into a major issue of gun rights versus free speech after the group spilled onto a private Central West End street and were confronted by gun-waving mansion owners Mark and Patricia McCloskey.
The greatest danger the McCloskeys faced during the brief encounter was from each other as they wildly aimed their firearms and exercised minimal trigger-finger discipline. At one point, pistol-wielding Patricia McCloskey walked right in front of her husband’s assault-rifle muzzle. At various other points, he aimed his rifle directly at her upper torso and head. At no point in video footage did protesters appear to step on the McCloskeys’ property, keeping a distance of 25 to 30 feet from the mansion.
This, of course, ignores the reality on the ground that prompted the McCloskeys to get those firearms in the first place.
To start with, they were on private property. A gate was destroyed to allow these individuals to gain access to that private property. It was a private street, even, meaning they were trespassing from the start.
Further, when the McCloskeys came out, they claim they were threatened by some of the first few to step onto their property.
Now, we don’t know how true that is or not, but that claim is completely missing from the Post-Dispatch‘s editorial. That’s an important bit of context that should have been included, but it’s not.
Sure, the McCloskeys were apparently not in any actual danger except for their poor weapons handling, but did they know that at the time? Would a reasonable person who knew of violent protests all over the country faced with a trespassing mob who already committed acts of vandalism to gain access to the property and threats from members of that mob feel like their life was endangered?
Oh, you’d better believe it.
Yet many in the media simply don’t want you to have that all-important context because then, you might not view the McCloskeys in the right light. They simply must advance the narrative and damn anything that gets in the way, even facts.
You see, while I may determine right and wrong on an objective basis, it seems folks at the Post-Dispatch only view what can help the narrative as “right” and anything working against that narrative as “wrong.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the state of American journalism.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/07/19/media-ignores-reality-mccloskeys/