Mark and Patricia McCloskey aren’t likely readers of Bearing Arms. I’m quite sure I disagree with them on a great many topics. In fact, I doubt I could relate to them much at all. I mean, I look at their house, then look at my home, and I’m pretty sure there are some significant divides between us.

However, I don’t think that matters. Not when it’s clear that a mob is still hounding their every step.

The McCloskeys say the first few protestors who began trespassing on private property threatened them and their home. So, they grabbed their guns and confronted a mob.

While the crowd eventually dispersed, the mob itself hasn’t really left. Now, they’re digging into the McCloskeys’ history.

The McCloskeys and the trustees of Portland Place are involved in a three-year legal dispute over a small piece of property. The McCloskeys claim they own it, but the trustees say it belongs to the neighborhood.

A judge on Monday ruled against motions from both sides to end the case without a trial. Details about the legal case were first reported Thursday by St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mark McCloskey said in the affidavit that he and his wife purchased the home in 1988 and have taken several measures to improve the disputed piece of land.

The affidavit states they have “regularly prohibited all persons, including Portland Place residents, from crossing the Parcel including at least at one point, challenging a resident at gunpoint who refused to heed the McCloskeys’ warnings to stay off such property.”

An attorney for the McCloskeys’ seems to suggest that the incident really did take place. However, it also seems that the resident in question was and still is a friend of the couple’s. It seems that if the incident was that egregious, he or she probably wouldn’t remain friends with them. I mean, you pull a gun on me without a damn good reason, that’ll ruin my feelings of warmth toward you.

But that didn’t happen.

Nor, it should be noted, were any charges filed. Again, it suggests that the incident wasn’t as bad as it’s being portrayed in the court documents.

Yet that incident is being used to portray the McCloskeys as unhinged, ready to pull a gun at the slightest provocation. People won’t register that this incident is from over 20 years ago, they’ll just see the headlines, read the first few paragraphs, and then file it away as “they like to pull guns on innocent people” when that’s simply not necessarily true.

Of course, this isn’t the only issue the McCloskeys’ have, either. It seems their neighbors have turned on them.

Since the incident, around three dozen neighbors who live on Westermoreland Place, where the McCloskey’s also dwell, have signed a letter condemning the actions of the couple.

The letter explains that Westermore Place and the adjoining street Portland Place are historic neighborhoods with the City of St. Louis representing many walks of life.

“As the undersigned, we condemn the behavior of anyone who uses threats of violence, especially through the brandishing of firearms, to disrupt peaceful protest, whether it be in this neighborhood or anywhere in the United States,” the letter reads.

The residents wrote that they seek positive action and constructive dialogue to build a civil society.

So, apparently, that positive action and constructive dialog is to not even ask their neighbor what happened, but to take the word of a trespassing mob?

I can’t help but wonder how much of this was motivated by a sincere belief and how much is motivated out of fear that if they don’t do something, the mob will return and burn the whole neighborhood to the ground?

Well, all the neighborhood except for the McCloskeys, anyway.

Regardless of the neighbors’ letter, it remains to be seen if the McCloskeys’ did anything wrong. Based on what they claim, I don’t think they did. They received threats from the early parts of a mob that was already trespassing. It’s not like we haven’t seen riots take place in numerous cities or anything. There was reason to be concerned for their safety.

Yet no one seems interested in waiting for an investigation. Then again, no one is really likely to trust an investigation, anyway. We all know that if the McCloskeys are charged, it’ll likely be about appeasing the mob, not in serving justice, and that’s something that would warrant serious protest as well.

What is it that so many of the protestors keep saying? No justice, no peace? Well, Skippy, that can be a two-way street, so be careful of what all you ask for. Leave the McCloskeys alone.