Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt late Monday filed a brief seeking to dismiss charges filed against Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who wielded their guns as a crowd moved past their property last month.
The brief filing cites the Second Amendment and says that “the Attorney General respectfully requests that the Court dismiss this case at the earliest possible opportunity.”
“The right to keep and bear arms is given the highest level of protection in our constitution and our laws, including the Castle Doctrine. This provides broad rights to Missourians who are protecting their property and lives from those who wish to do them harm,” Schmitt said.
“Despite this, Circuit Attorney Gardner filed charges against the McCloskeys, who, according to published reports, were defending their property and safety. As Missouri’s Chief law enforcement officer, I won’t stand by while Missouri law is being ignored—that’s why I entered this case to seek its dismissal, to protect the rights of Missourians to defend their property under Missouri’s Castle Doctrine.”
Schmitt reiterated his message on Twitter in a video, where he added an accompanying statement saying, “Citizens shouldn’t be targeted for exercising their [Second Amendment] right to self-defense.”
It also says that a person doesn’t “have a duty to retreat from a dwelling, residence, or vehicle where the person is not unlawfully entering or unlawfully remaining” and “from private property that is owned or leased by such individual.”
“In Missouri, they can do open carry, so maybe holding the guns at their side was OK. But not aiming them,” he said in an email.
Mark McCloskey later told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “I believe in my heart of hearts that the only thing that kept those mobsters, that crowd, away from us is that we were standing there with guns.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, last week told a St. Louis radio station that he will likely pardon the couple if they are convicted.
Parson told the station that the McCloskeys “did what they legally should do,” reported The Hill. “A mob does not have the right to charge your property,” he said, according to the paper. “They had every right to protect themselves.”
