Mark and Patricia McCloskey waited 1,847 days, filed three lawsuits, and made two trips to the Missouri Court of Appeals just to get back the rifle Mark held when a BLM crowd breached their private, gated street in St. Louis. The message to every American who dares defend his own property: the state will punish you, and it will take years to make it right — if it ever does.

On June 28, 2020, Black Lives Matter demonstrators pushed through Portland Place, a private street, en route to then-Mayor Lyda Krewson's home. The McCloskeys emerged from their house carrying legally owned firearms — Mark with an AR-15-style rifle, Patricia with a handgun. Within hours, the image was national news. The debate that followed split neatly along the usual fault lines: supporters saw homeowners defending their property during a summer of riots; critics claimed they escalated the situation.

What happened next is what matters. Then-St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner charged the couple with unlawful use of a weapon — not the trespassers who broke onto a private street, but the homeowners who stood on their own porch. Then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, intervened against the prosecution, arguing the case threatened Missourians' right to defend themselves and their property. Both outlets note Schmitt's criticism; neither dwells on the fact that a prosecutor weaponized the courts against citizens while the mob faced no comparable charges.

In 2025, McCloskey finally recovered his AR-15. "It only took 3 lawsuits, 2 trips to the Court of Appeals and 1,847 days, but I got my AR15 back!" he wrote on social media. The pistol took another 60 days.

The legal victory came at a steep price. McCloskey told Fox News Digital the ordeal "relatively destroyed" their law practice. "If you Googled the McCloskey Law Center for two years after that event or longer, it said 'permanently closed,'" he said. "If you Google my name right now it still says Mark McCloskey is a former personal injury lawyer. Nobody told me I retired."

The lesson, McCloskey said, is one every American should heed: "You can't rely on others. You have to be prepared. You have to know how to defend yourself."

He added: "It teaches the benefit of perseverance."

Perseverance shouldn't be a prerequisite for justice. A couple stood on their own property, on their own private street, holding their own legally purchased firearms, while a crowd that had no lawful right to be there passed through. The state came after them — not the trespassers. The guns were seized. The business was ruined. It took nearly five years and a small fortune in litigation to claw back what was theirs from the start.

The McCloskeys got their firearms back. They will not get the years, the clients, or the reputation back. The question that lingers is the one the founders would have asked in a tavern: when the mob comes onto your street and the prosecutor comes for your name, which one is supposed to be the government?