The rest of us missed it, but when Trump said that, what a certain kind of armed American heard him say was that they could shoot someone in the middle of their Fifth Avenue. The protesters were marching to a demonstration outside Mayor Lyda Krewson's house. Clearly, he didnt carry this gun very often, a fact made all the more obvious by the frequency with which he pointed its business end toward his wife, who was also barefoot, beside him, wielding a small semiautomatic pistol loosely in her hands, like a once-cherished dream that now might burst and dry up at any moment. The protesters were marching to Mayor Lyda Krewson's house in protest of her doxxing people who argued to defund the police. Missouri law says a person "commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons" if "he or she knowingly exhibits, in the presence of one or more persons, any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner. The details of the indictment were not immediately available. The incident led to both a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention for the McCloskeys and felony charges of unlawful use of weapons. President Donald Trump retweeted a video of the couple, without comment, on Monday morning. Looking for smart ways to get more from life? Thats not quite correct, as some lawyers have pointed out, and its also a non sequitur, since no one invaded the McCloskey compound, although a few brave souls did attempt to talk them down and encouraged the crowd of marchers not to engage the armed idiots. The McCloskeys' office did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. A clerk for the St. Louis Circuit Court said a grand jury filed charges of exhibiting a weapon and tampering with evidence against Mark McCloskey, 61, and Patricia McCloskey, 63. Local reporter covering federal court in Alexandria, Va. and local court in Arlington and Alexandria. Charges against the protesters for misdemeanor trespassing were dropped last month; prosecutors said trustees of the private community did not want to pursue the case. Last night, the Twittersphere was aflutter with McCloskey defenders, arguing that the couple were simply exercising their supreme American rights: In this view, the Second Amendment, Stand Your Ground, and the Castle Doctrineas in, a mans home is his castlepermit armed Americans to essentially shoot anyone anytime on their own property, all the way out to the sidewalk. That fearthat they are no longer a silent majority, or a majority at all, assured of keeping what they havehas been brought to a crescendo by the pro-gun, anti-welfare right wing of American politicos who, four years ago, threw their support behind a scabrous, rapacious old bigot from Queens who once boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue with impunity. Regarding the McCloskeys attempt at frontier justice in their upscale neighborhood, that ex-NRA spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, said it was weak sauce to act like marching through residential neighborhoods isnt an escalation of tactics weve seen the past month where daytime protests diminish into nighttime riots. This is how Loesch demonstrates that shes uninterested in truth, safe firearms operation, and the proper usage of the English word diminish. He previously edited for Task & Purpose, Mother Jones, and The Wall Street Journal. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and PrivacyPolicy. It didnt seem so far-fetched: Sunday was, after all, the second anniversary of the murder of five Annapolis Capital Gazette staffers by a crazed gunman. While some of the protesters stopped to stare at the gun-toting couple, others in the crowd could be heard urging them to move on. The McCloskeys nervously waved their weapons at the nonthreatening crowd, which included a Black man wearing a shirt that read Hands Up, Dont Shoota throwback to the nearby 2014 police killing of teen Michael Brown and the subsequent orgy of racist militarized police violence in Missouri that summer. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP, Standing Their Ground in Well-Manicured Yards. The officer in that case, David Maas, was indicted on a federal charge of deprivation of rights under color of law in March. The couple have since been named as Mark and Patricia McCloskey, two personal-injury lawyers, according to The Riverfront Times.