When leaders are cowards, citizens must defend themselves

The St. Louis police who confiscated Patricia McCloskey’s inoperable handgun last week proved that when she stood by her husband’s side June 28 to defend their lives and property against a violent Black Lives Matter mob in their St. Louis suburb, she might as well have been pointing a summer sausage.

If something isn’t done to abet the rampant victimization and murder of our citizens underway by the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization, future responses by gun owning Americans will not be so inert.

St. Louis prosecutors were kind enough to have McCloskey’s handgun taken apart and reassembled to make it lethal prior to the pur­suit of the circuit prosecutor’s charges against the couple. While it still amounts to evidence tampering, their assistance provided the McCloskeys with a valuable service for which they would otherwise have most likely paid a full hour’s bench time at any local gun shop.

But the criminal case against the McCloskeys is compromised. At least for now but depend­ing on the continued coddling of violent mobs associated with the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization, brandishing a sausage is still not a crime in Missouri.

It’ll be interesting to see how that fact plays into the criminal charges against the McCloskeys, who have been rushed to the status of folk heroes among right-thinking Americans who are justifiably horrified at the destruction and murder wrought by BLM virtually unfet­tered by leadership in the nation’s urban areas.

What will not be resolved by the now compro­mised criminal case against the McCloskeys is the maturing mood among most of America that it is only those who follow the rules – not those who break them – that are subject to the conse­quence of law. The belief is justified, growing and dangerous.

The point has no more perfect illustration than the incident with the McCloskeys, who because of a lack of police protection took the last resort available to them to protect their lives and their property by arming themselves, standing their ground and confronting a defin­able threat. When the government fails or abdi­cates its responsibility to protect American families, what else can they do?

While the McCloskeys are quite accessible to the long arm of the law in their alleged fire­arm handling violations, accountability has been only sparingly asserted against the mob of thugs who tore down a security gate marked “no trespassing” to gain access to the McCloskeys’ private neighborhood. That’s typical for what has become the wanton violence and destruc­tion pursued by BLM against individuals and property owners of all races and tax brackets. Led by its avowed Marxist founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, BLM saw a perfect smokescreen for its attack against America in the murder of George Floyd. Mainstream media has ignored the organiza­tion’s Marxist roots, and generally failed to condemn its attack on the country.

In city after city, American property owners have been victimized to the tune of billions and numerous citizens murdered, yet leadership in these cities still refuses to treat BLM as the enemy it is. The ludicrous rebukes by mayors of these urban muck pits to President Trump’s assignment of federal protection there speaks volumes as to whose side they’re really on. They lack the courage and the will to protect their citizenry, then they castigate the federals who try to cover for their neglect and cowardice. The immediate demands of citizens’ safety justify seizing to their own means of protection as they await an election to throw these left-leaning incompetents from office.

If leadership won’t act, the citizenry has no other choice but defend itself. And they won’t be pointing sausages. ###

–Dane Hicks in publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kansas.