Armed St. Louis Homeowner: ‘The Only Thing That Stopped the Crowd Was My Rifle’

The St. Louis, Missouri, homeowner who stood against hundreds of protesters Sunday while holding an AR-15 says, ‘The only thing that stopped the crowd was my rifle.”

The homeowner, Mark McCloskey, told KSDK that he and his family were outside eating dinner as protesters began moving through the neighborhood.

He said:

Somebody forced the gate, and I stood up and announced that this is private property. Go back. I can’t remember in detail anymore. I went inside, I got a rifle. And when they … because as soon as I said this is private property, those words enraged the crowd. Horde, absolute horde came through the now smashed down gates coming right at the house. My house, my east patio was 40 feet from Portland Place Drive. And these people were right up in my face, scared to death. And then, I stood out there. The only thing we said is this is private property. Go back. Private property. Leave now.

He said the protesters’ response was frightening:

At that point, everybody got enraged. There were people wearing body armor. One person pulled out some loaded pistol magazine and clicked them together and said that you were next. We were threatened with our lives, threatened with a house being burned down, my office building being burned down, even our dog’s life being threatened. It was, it was about as bad as it can get. I mean, those you know, I really thought it was Storming the Bastille that we would be dead and the house would be burned and there was nothing we could do about it. It was a huge and frightening crowd.

Mark and his wife evaluated the situation and he said his wife “grabbed a pistol and I had a rifle, and I was very, very careful I didn’t point the rifle at anybody. The only thing that stopped the crowd from approaching the house was when I had that rifle and I was holding there.”

Breitbart News reported on Mark and wife standing armed outside their home to protect it.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.