Mark and Patricia McCloskey live in a gated community in St. Louis, Missouri. They were suddenly thrust into the national limelight when a group of protesters broke through the gates of their neighborhood. The startled McCloskey’s saw a hundred or so protesters coming toward their house. They grabbed their firearms and stood on their front porch to keep the protesters back. Their lives were threatened, their dog’s life was threatened and they were told their home would be burned down. The police were nowhere to be seen. Apparently, St Louis police were told to stand down.
The McCloskey’s have been criticized for defending themselves, their dog and their home with firearms. I will tell you I would have done the same thing. Mrs. McCloskey has been criticized for having her finger on the trigger of her pistol and Mr. McCloskey for holding his AR15 level. They were facing 100 or more protesters. For those out there who have received training, you may have heard of, or even practiced, the Tueller Drill.
Lt. Tueller proved that when a person gets within 21 feet of a potential victim, they can travel that distance and strike you with their fist, club or knife in one and a half seconds or less, all of which could be lethal. Many police departments have extended that further out to 50 feet. That is for a single person. The McCloskey’s were facing a mob. To those who criticize their gun handling, you need to think about the circumstances these people were facing. Some of the mob was 30 feet away. I would like to tell those who criticize them – easy for you to say, you were not there.
The McCloskey’s instantly became a target of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. Gardner is a left-wing prosecutor who sides with the mob. She instigated a search warrant on the McCloskey’s home to seize their firearms. Clearly they were only defending themselves and their home but that doesn’t matter. Gardner wanted to make an example out of them. Of course, some of their cowardly neighbors said how awful it was that these two people defended themselves. They were just piling on to avoid the wrath of Kim Gardner. Meanwhile, the Republican Governor of Missouri is also doing nothing.
We have to stand up for ourselves and people like the McCloskey’s. If we don’t, it is all gone. We should follow Benjamin Franklin’s advice, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we will all hang separately.”
Years ago, a friend of mine and I were targeted by four thugs who tried to force us off the road and when they couldn’t do that, they chased us. We could not outrun them, they had a fast car and we were in an old pickup. We were finally able to get on a gravel road and create enough dust that they couldn’t see. We turned the pickup sideways in the middle of the road, got out of the truck and faced them down across the hood and box with a couple of 12 gauge shotguns and a .45 automatic. There are no Marquis of Queensberry rules when you are facing thugs or a mob. If you think there are, you are already a long way towards dead.
The PEW Research Center has surveyed gun owners as to why they own firearms. There can be more than one reason. The results are as follows. Personal Protection 67%; Hunting 38%; Shooting Sports 30%; Collecting 13% and Job Related 8%. Hunting used to be the number one reason by far. Times have changed. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) produced 3,951,607 for June 2020. Illinois lead the way with 706,000 NICS checks. In Illinois, every FOID card and Illinois Concealed Carry License holder must go through a check when applying for a new card or renewing an existing card. This does not count the daily background checks Illinois gun owners must go through. New FOID card applications hit the 40,000 mark in June, by the way. Thus far, Illinois has accounted for 3,878,025 background checks in the first 6 months of 2020. The total new firearm purchases for the United States in June are estimated to be 2,387,524 units with 1,511,714 being handguns, according to the Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting. Right now, 2020 is on pace to be a record year for firearm purchases.
I expect firearm and ammunition sales to continue to remain high for the rest of the year. If Joe Biden should be elected President, sales will skyrocket beyond anything we have ever seen. The lame stream media mumbles and rambles about why firearm sales are breaking all records. Their next story is about riots and the one after that is about defunding the police and they still wonder why. Anyone with the brain of an amoeba could figure that out. Add to that, no one seems to have the back of the police except a few conservative groups like firearm owners. The chaos in Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Portland and other places is being orchestrated by outside forces bent on destroying the United States as we know it. The 20th century communist revolutionary Che Guevara said that it is not necessary to wait for conditions for revolutionary insurrection, you can create them. I think that is one of the things going on now. Another is to create a diversion so we are distracted and don’t watch attempts to steal the next election. We have to be alert to everything. There are gun owners who tell me they don’t want to be involved in politics. That is like passengers on a floundering ship saying they don’t want to help save the ship. They would rather drown or, in our case, lose their Second Amendment Rights.
According to the Chicago Police Chief, the Chicago Police took 173 illegal guns off the street over the 4th of the July weekend. While this makes a great soundbite, a gun is just an inanimate object. The fact is they did not take any of those people who illegally possessed those guns off the street. The Chief complained that there is no penalty for illegal gun possession. Umm, sorry Chief, that just is not so. Illegal firearm possession is a local, state, and federal crime. The jurisdiction to enforce the law starts with local government; the state follows the local lead and the federal government follows the state. In some of these cases, felons possessed the guns. If a felon is convicted, a person can get 10 years per change in the big house for that. Then we have the case of an eight year old girl who was shot in her grandmother’s back yard. They actually know who fired the shot. That guy isn’t in jail either.
The Mayor of Chicago is blaming the Coronavirus for this sharp rise in violence. The fact that the authorities released everyone out of jail and required no bail if arrested, and are not charging anyone with crimes has nothing to do with what is going on. It is true that they let everyone out of jail using the Coronavirus as an excuse. It is apparently okay to let them run around killing people but heaven forbid they get a runny nose.
This situation is similar in every major city in the country. They, of course, blame guns for all of this. Gun owners need to stand up and get organized. Joining the ISRA is the best way to do that.
There are literally 1000’s of new gun owners in the Illinois and the United States. Most of them are still in shock as to how much paper work and red tape it takes to simply purchase a firearm for self-defense. These new people are like piles of iron ore, nickel, limestone and coal in a materials yard at a steel mill. At this point, they are raw material. They have to be put together to become steel. What we are talking about is political steel. They have to be organized into the pro-gun movement. To do that, the ISRA needs your help. You all know new gun owners. Ask them to join the ISRA. We need your help.
We just celebrated the 244th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We are in the most perilous time in our history since the day before the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. I believe we are seeing a well orchestrated Fifth Column movement underway in the United States. I also believe this movement has been under way since the 1960s.
The Chicago Tribune reports that between June 1, 2020, and June 17, 2020, the Illinois State Police received 42,089 applications for FOID cards, with nearly 5000 of those applications occurring in one day. This upswing in FOID card applications has been going on since last December.
Speaking of FOID cards, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart wants to raise FOID card fees to help him pay for more ankle monitoring devices for all the scum they have let out of jail in Cook County. Law-abiding gun owners did not cause any crimes but we are supposed to pay for the lawlessness that Cook County allows. No thank you. Criminals complain that they have to pay for the cost of their own monitoring. If you don’t want to be in the legal system, don’t commit crimes. If you don’t commit crimes, that will go a long way toward keeping you out of the legal system. I’m surprised they don’t know that.
Movements to defund the police have caused the veil of secrecy that has surrounded them to be lifted once the details of defunding are revealed. Minneapolis has indeed defunded the police but the City Council has hired private security to protect them. Their hypocrisy has no limits it seems. In Los Angeles, the special victims unit, gang crime units and other essential units for the people who need it most were cut. Of course training is cut everywhere. What we have here is rule by the mob. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. The mob is actually the left wing’s militia. They are well financed and controlled by those who want to destroy the United States – names like George Soros and Michael Bloomberg come to mind. These people hate, and I do mean hate, the Second Amendment because that is one of the few ways American citizens can fight back.
The ISRA is pleased to announce that in March 16 we will host a Glock Armorers Course On March 16, 2021. On March 17 and 18, 2021 we will host a Glock Operator’s Course. Both courses will be held at the ISRA Range in Bonfield. We will let everyone know when registration opens up.
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