In Missouri, you
also have a right to protect yourself if you’re in imminent threat of
deadly harm if you have a legal right to be in a location. Missouri allows you to defend yourself with the use of deadly force if
you’re under imminent threat of deadly force, without a duty to retreat
in public. Even more so if you are at your home.
Now, wouldn't a mob of defiant and destructive trespassers on their property count as a threat of deadly harm given that Patricia and Mark McCloskey were at their home in a gated community and that gate had been destroyed?
Missouri's has a Castle
Doctrine law and these guns were lawfully possessed. The law states,
in subsection 3, that deadly force cannot be used unless “[s]uch force
is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully
entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter private property that is
owned or leased by an individual.” However, no lethal force was used
here. It was threatened.
Last I checked: trespassing was a crime inmost jurisdictions. That means the protesters are shit out of luck the moment they crossed the gate and violated the country code (sarcasm).
It sounds pretty cut and dried that the McCloskeys have a defence there. While Missouri's law may be an affirmative defence, the McCloskeys were in their home. They were also facing off a mob. I would add that a person who is deemed to be the aggressor in a confrontation that
turns deadly is not eligible to raise a “stand your ground”
defence.
I'm not a fan of these laws. I would also add that Black Lives Matter should have placed their efforts in trying to repeal these laws.
On the other hand, it would have been ironic had Stand Your Ground been used to protect someone who had shot defiant Black Lives Matter protesters. But that is lost on the people who are virtue signalling in these protests.
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